This content was featured in the December 2023 issue of our Kansas Country Living Centerspread.

Ringing in a new year sparks a sense of renewed hope and optimism about the future. As the CEO of Prairie Land Electric, for me, it’s a time to reflect on where we are and where we’re going. At the heart of this reflection, I think about ways we can better serve you, the members of our cooperative. 

Our team at Prairie Land Electric is always looking ahead, exploring ways to innovate and use new technologies to improve our services. As our nation increasingly relies on electricity to power the economy, keeping the lights on has never been more important. We’re committed to powering — and empowering — our community at a cost local families and businesses can afford.

So how are we working to ensure reliable and affordable power while adapting to a changing energy landscape and our community’s evolving needs? 

One critical component of reliable power is the mix of energy resources used to generate the electricity that keeps the lights on across our territory. You may not realize it, but Prairie Land Electric doesn’t generate electricity. Instead, we purchase it from our energy provider, Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, and from there, we distribute it to homes and businesses throughout our community. In 2022, our energy resource mix was made up of 45.1% market, 4.6% natural gas, 35.9% coal, 13.4% wind and 1% solar. 

While we’re increasingly using more electricity generated from renewable energy sources, we still depend on a diverse energy mix to ensure reliable power is available to our members whenever they need it.

In addition to managing a reliable energy mix, Prairie Land Electric is using technology to enhance our local grid, limit service disruptions and improve outage response times.

Advanced metering technology, also known as AMI, helps pinpoint the exact location of an outage and can even analyze damaged or tampered meters. AMI helps Prairie Land Electric save money with real-time data, and ultimately improves power reliability for our entire community. 

Periodic drone inspections of poles and lines have allowed us to better assess the condition of the structures. Using drones after a storm helps us evaluate the damage sustained in a more accurate and timely manner. 

Prairie Land Electric is also taking part in a sectionalizing study to identify what protective equipment is needed and where to maintain and improve system reliability. Strategically hardening sections of the system helps minimize the spread of outages beyond their immediate area and avoid bringing down entire feeder lines. 

Proactive tree trimming is another way we limit service disruptions. It’s essential to keep power lines clear from overgrown limbs that are likely to fall.

One of the best methods for improving our services to you is monitoring trends and leading practices from other electric co-ops in Kansas and across the country. Learning from other co-ops is one of the many benefits of the cooperative business model because for us, it’s about cooperation, not competition. 

As we turn our focus to 2024, Prairie Land Electric will continue working to provide the reliable, affordable and safe electricity you expect and deserve — for today and tomorrow.