Congressman Blum tours MVEC


MVEC welcomed Congreeman Rod Blum and his wife, Karen, to their facility in Anamosa on Jan. 25. They showed Blum around their facility and gave him a rundown of the power and fiber services offered. From left are MVEC COO Jeremy Richert, Rod and Karen Blum, and MVEC CEO Jim Lauzon. (Photo by Kim Brooks)
By: 
Kim Brooks
Express Editor

     Congressman Rod Blum stopped in Jones County on Jan. 25 to visit with employees and tour Maquoketa Valley Electric Cooperative.

     The Anamosa-based company was proud to tout their new high-speed fiber Internet, MVlink.

     “There was a shortage, a void in the area,” shared Jeremy Richert, COO, in reference to the need for rural broadband. “Twenty percent of our customers had no access to Internet.”

     MVEC expanded its smart grid network to offer such services to their customers throughout their four-county area.

     Richert explained that fiber provides faster service to devices and it’s not a shared medium.

     “There’s no buffering with this,” he said. “It’s more reliable than wireless. It helps improve communication substantially.”

     With fiber Internet, users don’t experience connection issues due to weather conditions or bandwidth issues.

     At the close of 2017, MVlink has constructed 542 miles of mainline fiber. Over 3,400 members have shown interest online to be a part of MVlink, with over 1,400 members currently signed up for the service. At present, 780 members are connected with completed home installation.

     For MVEC itself, eight of their power substations are using fiber networks to communicate smart grid data back to their offices in Anamosa.

     Richert said fiber service also improves energy efficiency.

     MVEC is installing their fiber lines on overhead utility poles they already own.

     “That’s really feasible for us,” he said.

     “There’s nothing wrong with the reliability of overhead fiber,” added MVEC CEO Jim Lauzon.

     “It reduces the costs to our customers,” said Patty Manuel, director of business development for MVEC. She said the project costs would surly increase if they had to bury all of the lines.

     Then, at each substation, they built small storage buildings to house the necessary service equipment.

     With MVEC’s smart grid power system, they cover about 3,200 miles. Today, they have $8 million invested in smart grid technology.

     Since MVEC started investing in the reliable electric service, in-house data has shown that less maintenance is needed over time. Underground faults are down by 91 percent, lightning power outages are down 33 percent, and maintenance issues caused by small animals/birds is down by 12 percent.

     Over all, since 1996, there has been a 31 percent reduction in the number of power outages in a year, and a 52 percent reduction in the number of minutes MVEC’s members are without power.

     Lauzon explained to Blum that 60 percent of the energy consumed by MVEC stems from non-carbon conductors.

     “Which is high,” promoted Manuel.

     Another 20-25 percent is from wind energy.

     “Electricity is not growing at the rate it was in the ‘70s and ‘80s,” Lauzon said.

     Because of the smart grid technology, MVEC uses automated meters, meaning their meters don’t have to be manually read and recorded. Richert said it’s a good way for them to gather usable data for their customers on usage.

     “The payback has been more reliable than anything,” added Lauzon. “It’s good for our members at the end of the day.”

     MVEC has 37 substations that they’re able to collect real-time data and updates from at any given moment, monitored from their operations center.

     Blum was quite impressed with all that MVEC and MVlink is able to offer its customers, saying his residence is just over the line with which he can secure MVEC services.

     “You’re helping your customers save money,” he said.

     In terms of the latest and greatest technology MVEC is trying to stay ahead of the game. “It’s a brave new world,” Blum said.

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