Electric Co-op Today

T-Mobile’s slogan is “stick together”—which is just what the cell phone company would like to do with the hundreds of co-ops serving it.

“Nationally, more than 480 electric cooperatives serve one or more T-Mobile accounts,” noted Jerry Bingold, NRECA western regional manager, C&I business development. Bingold moderated a recent Web conference highlighting the energy management program at the nation’s fourth largest cell phone carrier.

Cost cutting tops the list of goals and since the program began in 2005, T-Mobile has saved more than $37.5 million, noted James Chemp of Johnson Controls, who serves as an on-site energy manager for T-Mobile. “It works out to be about 5.6 percent of our utility costs we are saving,” he said.

One thing that helps with that figure is time-of-use rates. “Since our consumption is fairly steady, actually we come out ahead with a time-of-use rate,” Chemp said. “If there is one, we usually take it.”

He also made a pitch for free energy audits and annual rate reviews. But while saving money is good, Chemp called it crucial for the electricity to stay on.

“Power reliability is very important for T-Mobile, because we carry 911 calls,” he said.

He urged co-ops to let the company know about planned outages, so that it can have generators ready.

Chemp also urged co-ops to make an after-hours contact available and to update the company on restoration efforts following storms.

Chemp cited the positive working relationship that T-Mobile has with Choptank Electric Cooperative. Debbie Rementer, key accounts manager at the Denton, Md., co-op, provides an outage reporting account information form to all of her key accounts.

It includes the address and account number of each site, as well as the meter number, rate class and the number of the line and pole serving each site.

“When I provided this information to [Chemp] he was then able to take a look at all T-Mobile accounts served by Choptank,” Rementer said.

“He then had all the information he needed at his fingertips, and he could share this information with his T-Mobile regional folks.”

Despite the tough economic times T-Mobile is growing, adding 3,500 cell towers a year, as well as stores.

Tags: Business and Finance, C&I, Power Rates