NET Conference, Trends, Reports & Analyses
How to Keep Business Power On 24/7
FORT MYERS, Fla.— Having a big commercial member that operates 24/7 can be a mixed blessing for an electric cooperative.
An Amazon.com facility in the service territory of Boone REMC. (Photo By: Circle City Group)
“It’s great revenue, great load factor,” said Alan Shedd, director, residential and commercial energy programs at Touchstone Energy®. “But obviously there are some challenges associated with that.”
Dan Brackemyre is well aware. He is manager of business development at Circle City Group, comprised of three Indiana co-ops: Boone REMC, Hendricks Power and South Central Indiana REMC.
Members of the Circle City Group serve several large distribution centers that operate non-stop. One is owned by Medco, the world’s largest mail order pharmacy, filling more than a million prescriptions a week.
“When they first approached us, one of their key factors was they just could never, ever, be down,” Brackemyre said during a Feb. 2 NET Conference session. “It’s all computers and automation.”
To keep the facility up and running, the co-ops use what Brackemyre calls “tridundancy.”
“Serving that site we have three separate substations from three separate transmission feeds,” he said. “We built a new substation about 600 yards from this facility. It’s the primary feed.” A secondary is two miles away, while six miles up the road is the third substation.
“Meeting with the [member] up front and working with them to get the infrastructure right—that helps eliminate a lot of problems down the line for these 24/7/365 operations,” Brackemyre said.
Still, problems occur. Such was the case at one of the three Amazon.com facilities handled by Circle City Group. Each property is more than one million square feet.
“Their big time is from October through Christmas,” Brackemyre said. “They go from 600 employees to around 2,400.”
Last October, “right when the rush was starting,” Brackemyre said his phone rang during dinner. It was an Amazon official calling about a transformer that was smoking and taking a line down. Within a few hours, the transformer was changed out, because it was not something that could wait until tomorrow.
Brackemyre said that got done because the co-ops, and their staffs, realize the importance of these commercial and industrial members.
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Tags: NET Conference, Touchstone Energy, Trends Reports and Analyses