International
Co-ops Send Equipment Overseas
Electric cooperatives in Pennsylvania and Ohio have been busy practicing the three R’s—reduce, reuse, recycle—and those efforts will help achieve another R: rural electrification.
Adams Electric’s Karen Harner loads a transformer headed to a Philippines co-op. (Photo By: Sarah Eckerd)
Adams Electric Co-op, Gettysburg, Pa., and Consolidated Electric Co-op, Mount Gilead, Ohio, together donated nearly 100 used transformers to the NRECA International Foundation to distribute to electric co-ops in the Philippines.
The transformers are in route from Adams Electric to a port in Norfolk, Va. From there, they will travel via sea freight to the Philippines, where co-ops will refurbish them before putting them into service.
“There is a big push under the current [Philippines] administration to expand electric coverage, so I would say that if the transformers were not donated, the communities would eventually receive service, but not likely for several more years,” said Dan Waddle, senior vice president of NRECA International Programs.
Transformers are good candidates for equipment donations. Even after they outlive their usefulness in the United States, they still have enough life in them to last several more years in developing countries.
Some of the nearly 100 transformers donated by two co-ops. (Photo By: Sarah Eckerd)
“We put a lot of demands on our equipment, so our standards are higher,” explained Ron Plank, vice president of operations at Adams EC, which donated 75 transformers. “But in developing countries, they don’t have as many electric devices as we do, they don’t use heating or air conditioning.”
Non-donated transformers “would have been recycled or junked and the metal would have been reclaimed,” Plank said.
Since 1995, Adams EC’s donations to the NRECA International Foundation have included bucket and service trucks, electric meters and other depreciated equipment.
The donation was Consolidated Electric’s first to the NRECA International Foundation.
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Tags: Co-op News, International