 |
Mar 30 , 2011
|
|
|
This Avista crew was in the middle of installing a
large steel electrical structure that holds power lines
which cross the Spokane River near SFCC and TJ
Meenach Bridge. The old wooden structure is still
standing in the middle with the poles connected at
the top. Two of the taller steel replacement poles are
on the picture on the left and right. The placement of
this structure is on the side of a 45-degree angle
ravine that slopes down to the river below. Once the
full structure is built the crew will re-string new, more
efficient power lines across the river. |
|
|
|
The Avista crew fills in the hole for a new steel pole.
A contractor had to shoot gravel down the ravine on
a belt to fill in the massive depth of the new poles. |
We all use power every day, but don’t always know where it comes from or why it’s so reliable
This morning I wrote a reply in an ongoing online conversation I’ve been having with a few folks on a local news website. The discussion was wide-ranging from rates to hydropower. We don’t always agree with one another. That’s OK. It got me thinking about power generation in our area and our customers’ use of it.
One area of the discussion that struck me was the idea that Avista’s hydroelectric dams (built when the company was Washington Water Power) were paid for by taxpayers. I don’t know if this is a common misperception, but it’s incorrect. In fact, all of Avista’s (WWPs) dams were built through private funding. All Spokane River projects: Monroe Street (1890) Post Falls (1906), Nine Mile (1908), Nine Mile (1915) and Upper Falls (1922); and Clark Fork projects: Noxon Rapids (1959) and Cabinet Gorge (1953) were built privately. There are so many little dams chugging away day after day, decade after decade that they are easy to ignore. Even after four years of working at Avista when I think of a “big” dam, I find myself thinking of Grand Coulee or Chief Joseph dams on the Columbia River. Those are federal dams built with taxes, Avista’s weren’t.
Our power mix is roughly 50 percent hydroelectricity. Forty-two of that 50 percent comes from the dams we built, own and operate. The rest come from long-term contracts with other hydro generators.
Focusing on reliability so you don’t have to
Operating these dams and electric resources is really a complex process that most of us don’t think about every day. The perception may exist since these resources are up and running that power has, and always will be plentiful and reliable. That’s just not the case. We’ve got to work at it together. One of the questions I received last summer when I was working on our Energy on the Street project was about the future of energy. How is Avista planning for the future?
The web of electric generation around the Northwest provides juice for those who want it and pay for it. When I come home at night and flip on the lights, I don’t think about where that power comes from and I bet you don’t either. Is it hydro, natural gas, biomass, coal or wind? But there’s a system in place that we manage that ensures you get the power you need when you want it. That’s one way to think of reliability.
The system is also reliable because employees maintain it. The effort extends beyond maintaining or upgrading power plants. It’s reliable because of the people who climb the poles in six-feet of snow. The men and women who brave the elements to ensure the power lines that feed your home are back in service as quickly as possible when nature’s fury blows trees into the lines, encases them in ice or burns them to the ground in a firestorm.
Avista’s electrical system is rooted around 125 years of history, but it’s not on autopilot. Our employees work hard to ensure that when you flip the light switch or turn on the TV, you don’t have to think about 125 years of power lines and dams. All you need to know is that we’re taking care of it and that it’s there for you when you need it. That’s reliability.
Mar 25 , 2011
It’s been a little while since I posted an Energy on the Street video here on the blog. I absolutely love this project and how we’ve been able to shape it together by beging transparent about it from the beginning. By posting on the blog and twitter where we would film and who was answering questions, we hopefully built some excitement for the launch of the videos way back in September. We haven’t released any new videos since December, so to help broaden the reach of the videos, I posted some of our most popular ones on YouTube, where hopefully they will be seen by Avista customers like you. You can see all the videos at AvistaUtilities.com/Street. As always, Energy on the Street is a living project and we’d like your submissions. Send us a video or e-mail about whatever energy related topic you’re interested in and we’ll do our best to get you an answer.
In the meantime, enjoy the video above about Public Utility Districts (PUDs) and Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs).
Nov 09 , 2010
Wind and solar video
At the end of each video a sharing menu appears, making it simple and easy to get the word out
|
|
|
At the end of each video this menu appears with several
options for sharing, including e-mail, Facebook, Twitter,
Google, Blogger, Wordpress and more. | Post by Dan Kolbet
Thousands of you have already browsed Energy On The Street, our interactive customer engagement video project where we get answers to your most pressing questions. Earlier this month we added six new video Q&As, featuring topics such as rates, generation, rebates, renewables and bills. Today, 18 videos are available for you to view.
You can help spread the word about Energy on the Street by watching your favorite video and sharing it. Here’s how it works – at the end of each video a black and gray menu appears on screen with several options for sharing. (It looks like the image above). You can share the link through e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Blogger, Wordpress and more.
Oct 22 , 2010
|
|
|
Videographer Duane Regehr, Limited Income Program Manager Chris
McCabe and Communications Manager Dan Kolbet pause for a
photo between Energy on the Street takes. | Post by Dan KolbetToday was a great day. We recorded eight new question and answer videos for Energy on the Street, our interactive customer project that helps get you answers to your most pressing questions about energy. I plan to have a new batch of edited videos on our Energy on the Street page by early November.
Trying to schedule a number of employees to record answers on the same day is a bit tricky, but thankfully everyone was willing and happy to make today fit their schedule. This morning I was a bit worried about the shoot while driving into work – it was raining and I’d planned to record the answers outside. Thankfully, the sun peaked through the clouds at just the right times and allowed our Avista experts to answer your questions without getting soaked!
Today we tackled questions about rates and pricing, wind and solar power, time of day metering, PUDs and investor-owned utilities and more.
We also recorded our first Avista expert responding to a question that was e-mailed to us by a customer through our conversation@avistautilities.com inbox. If you’ve got additional questions for us, send us an e-mail, we’d love to get you an answer. Oct 07 , 2010 EOS Future
Post by Dan KolbetYou depend on Avista to supply you with energy whenever you need it. Ever wonder how we make sure we’re ready for the future? With a growing regional population and increasing demands on energy, how does Avista plan for the future to ensure it can provide for its customers? This question from Energy on the Street gives you all the know-how. Length: 1:13. Sep 27 , 2010
This morning I got an e-mail from a friend who said she heard an Avista Energy on the Street radio spot on her drive to work this morning. She checked out the website, www.AvistaUtilities.com/Street, as a result. It worked! Pretty cool.
We did radio spots to get the word out to you - our customers - that this interactive tool is available for you to use. If you didn’t know about it, I couldn’t very well expect you to watch a video or ask a question, right? Now you know.
I’ve got a personal stake in this project because I was lucky enough to be the guy interviewing our customers and employees and talking about energy. I was selected to record the radio spots (and write them too), for that reason. I want to see it succeed, but this project is not about me. Our customers and employees are the real stars of Energy on the Street and I think if you have a chance to review the videos, you’ll see that too. Like I say in the radio spots, I met some great people when we hit the streets with a camera to talk energy.
If you’re not a radio listener, here are the audio clips.
15-Second Spot: Energy on the Street, Pressing Questions
15 second spot
30-Second Spot: Energy on the Street, What your Neighbors Are Talking About
Play 30-Second Spot
Sep 24 , 2010
Play video
Where does renewable power come from?
Avista Stadium is powered 100% by renewable energy through Avista's Block-a-Block program. Where does that energy come from? (0:37)
This video is just one of the Energy on the Street customer questions and Avista answers. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to visit this interactive website. It launched on Sept. 1. We'll be adding more videos to the website in October.
Sep 01 , 2010
Today is a great day. Our interactive online feature, Energy on the Street is now live and ready for your questions. This summer I attended several community events and went to public places and talked to many Avista customers about energy. The ultimate goal was to gather their questions – the things they cared about most. I then took those questions and got answers to the most pressing topics from my co-workers, who happen to be experts in the fields discussed.
The web launch today at www.avistautilities.com/street is really just the beginning of this project. Currently posted are six videos, which span an array of topics. We’ll post additional videos every few weeks through the fall. So hopefully you’ll check back often. I’ve been writing about this project for a few months now on the blog and on Twitter. We announced where we’d be filming and even posted pictures of customers and employees talking with us. You can read every blog post here. I think this really speaks to the transparency of the project. We truly want our customers to know what we’re up to and to participate. We want your questionsWe’re ready to answer your additional questions and I know from participating in online forums – and even talking to family and friends at BBQs this summer – that more questions are out there. If you have a question that you’d like Avista to answer on camera, send it to me in an e-mail at Conversation@avistautilities.com and we’ll make it happen.
Visit Energy on the Street
Aug 27 , 2010
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Customers talk with Communications Manager Dan
Kolbet during Energy on the Street interviews. | Post by Dan Kolbet
I want to give a quick update on Energy on the Street. We’ve filmed answers for nearly all of the questions we’re placing on our website. Schedules have been a bit of a bear with summer vacations ending and I suspect we’ll get some more filming done within the next two weeks.
We had to create new pieces of the Avista Utilities website and I’ve received great support for the project from the guys building the pages. There’s nothing quite like starting from scratch, “Hey, I’ve got these videos I’d like to share with the world . . .”
If you haven’t heard yet, Energy on the Street is a project I’m working on that is all about your questions. The goal is to get Avista customers answers to their questions about energy and anything related to Avista. I attended several community events with a camera crew and captured customer questions. I took those questions back to Avista and asked my co-workers – experts on the subjects – to answer them on camera.
It’s been a great experience for me to meet so many different customers who I otherwise would probably never have talked to. The people I met were very nice, insightful individuals who had unique concerns and questions about the future of energy in our country and what their local utility is doing about it.
We’ll release the site to all of you in early September with six videos. I’ll post new videos every few weeks through the fall. My hope is that when people visit the site, they will come up with more questions that they want answers too and e-mail me at conversation@avistautilities.com. I’ll get those answers too. In fact, you can even shoot your question and we’ll use your actual video. Send me an e-mail and let’s get started.
It sounds like we’re probably going to do some radio spots to promote the site and get customers (who aren’t regularly reading the Avista Blog) to know it’s out there. I haven’t done radio before so this will be a bit of a challenge, but I think I’ve been pretty open about my feelings about this project and I’ll do my best to share that during the radio spots. So if you hear some guy on the radio, calling himself “Dan at Avista,” yep, that’s me.
The countdown has started. I can’t wait to release the Energy on the Street site for you in early September.
Aug 06 , 2010
|
|
|
Energy efficiency expert and Avista employee Tom, answers a question for Energy on the Street. |
Just a quick update on where we’re at for Energy on the Street. Today we recorded four Avista employees answering your questions about energy. The topics spanned from dam safety to energy efficiency and rates. We’ve got a full day of answer-filming next week, and then likely another day the following week.
|
|
|
Bridget works in customer service for Avista and discusses
the many tools available to customers on our website. | There is still time to submit a question to us to get answered by an Avista expert on camera. Just send me an e-mail here at the Blog and I’ll find you an expert and an answer, easy as that.
Yesterday I was asked a good question online about how this project is working. The question came from a discussion forum post on the Spokesman-Review’s website. The writer implied that we might only post questions and answers that are favorable to Avista. Essentially, that we’d edit out anything that wasn’t to our liking. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Some of the discussions we had with customers on camera didn’t result in an actual question for us to answer. We aren’t using those because there’s nothing to answer. We also aren’t running questions that are duplicates. Other than that, it’s exactly what our customers said. I am very pleased with the questions we received and the specific things our customers wanted to know about.
I’m excited to share the videos on the Conversation section of our website by the end of the month.
|
|