Board Candidacy and Bylaws Petition Deadlines Due Feb/March Time to flip open those new 2025 calendars: WEC’s Annual Meeting will be held on Thursday, May 1. At every Annual Meeting, three members are elected to WEC’s Board of Directors. Any member of the Co-op is eligible to run for election. In recent years, Board of Directors elections have been competitive, and some results have been
January 8, 2025
Background for January’s 2.91% Rate Increase WEC Plans to Sell Wrightsville Plant, Understanding How WEC Responds to Winter Storm Outages From our substations, power is delivered to you from a branching network of electric lines. One or more breaks anywhere along this path, regardless if they’re on WEC’s lines or not, will cause your power to go out. That’s how electricity flows. If we don’t
January 8, 2025
Rising property taxes drive rate pressure while Co-op leaders work to keep it under 3% On November 13, 2024, Washington Electric Cooperative filed a proposed rate increase of 2.91% with the Public Utility Commission (PUC). The rate increase takes effect January 1, 2025. A major driver of the rate increase is a steep rise in WEC’s property tax burden. WEC is a not-for-profit cooperative utility,
January 8, 2025
JJ Vandette previews the opportunities and efficiencies he’s focused on for next year and beyond About a year in as WEC’s first-ever Director of Special Projects and Innovation, JJ Vandette is already well-seasoned. He’s helping lead the Co-op’s process to switch to advanced meters, and he assembled WEC’s Integrated Resource Plan—a comprehensive strategic document required by regulators. He’s also keeping track and making priorities based
January 8, 2025
WEC was created not in a boardroom, but by lamplight in the homes of its founding members. The people who work on the lines and in the office are often members themselves: you see them grocery shopping, attending school functions, or at Town Meeting in your own community. Community has always been at the heart of the Co-op, and the staff and members of WEC
January 8, 2025
Thursday – December 19, 2024, 12:00 p.m. Thank you to the line crews for a quick restoration and thank you to our members for your patience waiting for restoration. Thursday – December 19, 2024, 10:45 a.m. Crews found wires down near East Hill and Blachly roads due to trees falling. Power has been restored to all but 63 members in that area. Repairs will continue
December 19, 2024
Tuesday, 2:30 p.m. The equipment was repaired and power restored. Thank you again for your patience. Tuesday, 1:00 p.m. 12/3/24 There is broken equipment on the line requiring repair in Chelsea. Power will be out for approximately an hour from 1:00pm on. This will impact 688 members in Chelsea and Corinth. Thank you for your patience. Remember: Do not approach downed lines or trees on lines,
December 3, 2024
11/29/2024 8:50 pm After two days of terrific work by WEC line workers, member service representatives and dispatchers, along with some very welcome assistance by Vermont Electric Cooperative and contract crews, all WEC members have had power restored. Thank you to all who helped and to members for their patience. 11/29/2024 2:30 pm Crews have restored power to all but about 340 members, but more
November 28, 2024
11/9/2024 3 pm All but a couple of individual issues have been resolved. Thank you to WEC crews who worked overnight to restore power and to our members for their patience. Remember: Do not approach downed lines or trees on lines, as they may still be energized. If you see a tree on power lines or lines down, please report it to us: local 802-223-5245
November 8, 2024
Electrical safety tips from Safety and Environmental Compliance Specialist David Young Why You Can’t Post On Poles – December 2024 Poles are an essential part of electric utility infrastructure, and all utilities take the time to monitor our poles and wires. A good number of WEC poles are accessible by road, but as many members know, we have a lot of poles and wires that
October 30, 2024
October-November 2024 Ask the Energy Coach: EV Winter Surprises? I’m getting my first EV next month, just in time for… winter! I had hoped to get used to driving it during warm weather, and I know the manufacturer’s published range wasn’t calculated in Vermont in January. What should I anticipate for actual range, cost to charge, and other winter surprises? Ah, winter surprises. The Energy
October 30, 2024
Being prepared is taking responsibility for the safety and comfort of yourself and those around you. That means staying informed, having the supplies you need, and making wise choices. As winter storm season approaches, the Co-op asks all members to please prepare for the possibility of outages. During major storms, outages can last several days. This annual checklist is published in Co-op Currents to help
October 30, 2024
October-November 2024 The question is: Is it worth it to our members to pay more for our own power than market cost, and some years substantially more? – Louis Porter The Board is going to reach its decision with a lot of thought and with an eye to what the plant is worth. – Stephen Knowlton Louis: Washington Electric is considering whether to sell the
October 30, 2024
A Co-op Month meditation on the relationship between our historic cooperative values and providing electricity today By Louis Porter, General Manager My family loves to recount the time when, at a young age and having grown up on a farm, I casually stepped outside and went to the bathroom off the front steps of the Adamant Co-op. A stone’s throw away —for want of a
October 30, 2024
What it was about for me was seeing the Co-op as an instrument of progressive change. – Richard Rubin Richard Rubin was ready to retire from the WEC Board of Directors last year. But the 78-year-old trial lawyer from Plainfield decided to run for re-election one last time after he met Board newcomer Pat Barnes, liked Barnes’s energy and ideas, and thought it would be
October 30, 2024
October 13 – 1:15 pm WEC crews have finished restoring power to the few remaining members who were out of service! Thanks to all at WEC who worked on this outage, to the Stowe Electric line crew members who came to help and to our members for their patience and understanding. Only a few Vermonters remain out of service as other utilities also complete their
October 12, 2024
August-September 2024 RES Changes Group Net Metering Rules, Speeds More Utilities Toward 100% Renewable Summer storms saturate and erode ground, causing more outages It’s true that trees don’t impact underground lines, but erosion and flooding do. In places where we’ve had underground lines for years, erosion and flooding are washing them away. – Louis Porter Group net metering of the type where generation hooks directly
September 4, 2024
Washington Electric Co-op is particularly concerned about the impact of electricity costs on lower-income members. This program… aims to alleviate that burden. -Louis Porter The Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC) and Washington Electric Cooperative (WEC) are teaming up on a program designed to help reduce the electric bills of both cooperative utilities’ income-qualified members while boosting renewable power. This initiative, funded by federal money, aims to
September 4, 2024
Get the right size transformer for your future electric load Going green can be a slippery slope—in a good way. It’s great to invest in emission-free devices, especially when they contribute to quality of life and cost less over the long term. What’s important is making sure you have the transformer capacity to power your new devices, both now and several years from now. Electric
September 3, 2024
Every year, Co-op Currents profiles an organization that receives funding from WEC’s Community Fund. In 2024, after several years of major events—floods, a pandemic—we decided to revisit three grantees we profiled in the past to learn if, and how, their needs and services have changed. The three organizations we returned to are Central Vermont Community Radio, profiled in 2022, the Vermont Foodbank, profiled in 2020,
September 3, 2024