Monday, December 23, 2013
A Christmas Wish from Glasgow EPB
8:54 AM | 
Posted by
Billy Ray |
Our
office will be closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, in the hope
that our team will get some well deserved time with their families. It
is our sincere hope that you get to do that as well.
If you have an emergency or suffer an interruption to one of the essential services you buy from us, please give us a call at 651-8341 and we will respond, no matter the date.
We have done a lot of that over the last 48 hours. Many of our folks worked continuously from Saturday evening through late Sunday night, repairing damage done to our networks by ferocious winds and some lightning. While all of the repairs are not complete, we have been able to accomplish many repairs and have implemented temporary fixes to other damage -- things that we hope can wait for permanent repair until after Christmas.
We give thanks during this season for another year in which we have been able to be your "Cavalry" and come to the rescue of many folks who needed help to return their lives to normal. We are thankful to have the opportunity to be of service, and we are thankful that our team has been able to do this work without being seriously injured. It is that for which we are the most thankful.
We do not say that lightly, because it is practically a miracle that we can say that. Conditions like what we had Saturday and Sunday often put our folks in back yards where they encounter a confusing array of downed trees, mud, energized conductors wrapped around an array of communications cables and other devices that present many dangers. This is normally done in total darkness during a driving wind and rain storm. Successfully returning your homes and businesses to the comfort and convenience that we need to make our lives happy, is fraught with many complications and dangers, and we count our blessings that we have a team capable of handling these challenges.
Thank you for choosing Glasgow EPB to perform these tasks for you. We hope that our work brings you the foundation of a wonderfully happy holiday season and that you build pleasant memories that will endure upon that foundation. Merry Christmas to you from all of us at Glasgow EPB!
If you have an emergency or suffer an interruption to one of the essential services you buy from us, please give us a call at 651-8341 and we will respond, no matter the date.
We have done a lot of that over the last 48 hours. Many of our folks worked continuously from Saturday evening through late Sunday night, repairing damage done to our networks by ferocious winds and some lightning. While all of the repairs are not complete, we have been able to accomplish many repairs and have implemented temporary fixes to other damage -- things that we hope can wait for permanent repair until after Christmas.
We give thanks during this season for another year in which we have been able to be your "Cavalry" and come to the rescue of many folks who needed help to return their lives to normal. We are thankful to have the opportunity to be of service, and we are thankful that our team has been able to do this work without being seriously injured. It is that for which we are the most thankful.
We do not say that lightly, because it is practically a miracle that we can say that. Conditions like what we had Saturday and Sunday often put our folks in back yards where they encounter a confusing array of downed trees, mud, energized conductors wrapped around an array of communications cables and other devices that present many dangers. This is normally done in total darkness during a driving wind and rain storm. Successfully returning your homes and businesses to the comfort and convenience that we need to make our lives happy, is fraught with many complications and dangers, and we count our blessings that we have a team capable of handling these challenges.
Thank you for choosing Glasgow EPB to perform these tasks for you. We hope that our work brings you the foundation of a wonderfully happy holiday season and that you build pleasant memories that will endure upon that foundation. Merry Christmas to you from all of us at Glasgow EPB!
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Preparing For Record Setting Lows
The cold weather simply
isn't letting up and once again the EPB needs your help. It
appears that Thursday morning is likely to set a new peak energy
demand for December with temperatures predicted to fall to new lows.
That is why we are declaring Thursday morning a Blue Level load alert
for Glasgow between 7:00 am and 10:00 am, and are again asking for
your help at both residences and businesses.
As we've mentioned before, if you are an EPB power customer you can help the community lower its energy bill from TVA. We have found that raising your thermostat a bit higher than normal before you go to bed allows you to store some heat before the coldest temperatures arrive at day break. Then, when you get up, lower your thermostat a few degrees (68 is a good temperature) and leave it that way until 10:00 a.m. or after. The pre-heating should help hold your temperature until the end of the peak.
As we've mentioned before, if you are an EPB power customer you can help the community lower its energy bill from TVA. We have found that raising your thermostat a bit higher than normal before you go to bed allows you to store some heat before the coldest temperatures arrive at day break. Then, when you get up, lower your thermostat a few degrees (68 is a good temperature) and leave it that way until 10:00 a.m. or after. The pre-heating should help hold your temperature until the end of the peak.
It is the large
appliances in a home that contribute the most to our peak demand in
the winter. Please delay turning on the clothes dryer, dishwasher, or
your electric oven between 7:00 am – 10:00 am on Thursday and limit
your use of hot water if you have an electric water heater. If you
are really feeling like helping, trip off your electric water heater
when you get up. You will still have hot water for your morning
routines, but the water heater will not immediately recover and drive
up our demand (just don’t forget to turn it back on later in the
day so it can recover).
Businesses can help by
lowering their thermostat temperature a couple of degrees during that
time frame and postponing any electric intensive projects until after
10:00 am or completing before 7:00 am.
We are busy working on research projects that will allow these processes to be automated so we do not have to ask you repeatedly for your help in minimizing our peak demands. While we have some very interesting projects, right now our only hope is for you to help us – and the entire community. Thank you again for your assistance!
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Time To Manage November's Peak
We haven’t had this discussion in a while,
but Wednesday morning is likely to set Glasgow’s peak energy demand for
November, and we need your help to keep it down.That is why we are declaring Wednesday morning a Blue level load alert for Glasgow.
The winter peaks are quite different
from the summer peaks we talked about over the last several months. In the
winter, Glasgow’s energy demand usually peaks between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.
We think that will happen on Wednesday, November 27.
If you are an EPB power customer you
can help the community lower its energy bill from TVA. You can help by raising
your thermostat a bit higher than normal before you go to bed. That will allow
you to pre-heat your home and store some heat before the coldest temperatures
arrive at day break. Then, when you get up, lower your thermostat a few degrees
(68 is a good temperature) and leave it that way until 10:00 a.m. or after.
That will help us get through the likely peak period on Wednesday.
There are other ways to help as well.
It is the large appliances in a home that contribute the most to our peak
demand. Avoid turning on the clothes dryer, dishwasher, or the oven before you
leave on Wednesday. If you are really feeling like helping, trip off your
electric water heater when you get up. You will still have hot water for your morning
routines, but the water heater will not immediately recover and drive up our
demand (don’t forget to turn it back on later in the day so it can recover).
We are busy working on research
projects that will allow these processes to be automated such that we do not
have to ask you repeatedly for your help in minimizing our peak demands. We
have some very encouraging ideas and results, but, for now, our only hope is
for you to pitch in and make these moves on your own. We hope you will help us
out!
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
The Internet Upgrade That Wasn't
The
internet upgrade was not accomplished last night due to a major error by
the hardware company. Since we plan these upgrades during the late
night to cause as little disruption to our customers as possible, we
could not get resolution from this mega-corporation during that time
frame. We are in contact this morning with the management and our sales
representative of this company who created the problem, voicing our
extreme displeasure and demand for resolution to this issue. We will
keep you advised as to when we will perform the upgrade, but in the
meantime if you are experiencing any internet problems please give us a
call at 651-8341 so we may address them.
Monday, September 30, 2013
VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
If you get
your internet service from Glasgow EPB (and if you don’t, you should!), you
will be interested in this upcoming event. Please take a moment to review this
announcement about work that will impact your internet service.
The broadband
network that delivers cable television and high speed internet services to the
people of Glasgow is a very complicated set of systems. At the very heart of
the network is the system we call the Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS),
and we need to make some changes and improvements to that system.
On the
evening of October 15, starting at about 11 p.m., and continuing through the
wee hours of the morning of Wednesday, October 16, we will be conducting an
extensive overhaul of our CMTS. This work will interrupt the internet service
to various parts of the community for extended periods during this time frame.
Please make plans for your life and your businesses to be affected by this work.
The
inconvenience should be worth it. We certainly hope so! This project is to
enhance the capabilities of our cable modem network to allow faster upload
speeds and even faster download speeds. Frankly, we see this as the equivalent
of a heart transplant. We know that a successful operation will yield greatly
increased quality of life, but we dread the operation and the many things that
could go wrong! Still, this is our job and we have been planning this operation
for most of 2013. On October 15, all of the hardware, software, experts, and
EPB team will be on hand to conduct this procedure. Please hang with us as we
go into battle.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Oops! We failed too….
We continue
to ask our customers to look for ways to conserve energy and, after a
significant problem with our 50 year old ceiling, we were forced to take a
serious look at ourselves. What we found
was that we were failing too. Fifty year
old windows and air handlers, while state of the art for their day, are
painfully inadequate in today’s environment.
So, we will be making some changes.
Effective
October 4th our main lobby will be relocated to an area at the back
entrance of our building. This will
allow contractors to start working on the lobby to bring it up to today’s
energy standards. Signs will direct our customers to the new temporary entrance.
Normal business transactions will be handled in that area, however we request
that all payments be made through our drive thru window. While we will keep our
drive thru window open as much as possible, there may be some necessary
closures of that area also. All local
banks accept our payments, or now may be a great time to look at automatic bank
draft or paying your bill online. If you
have any questions about those options, please contact us at epb@glasgow-ky.com or via phone at 651-8341.
We apologize
in advance for any inconvenience, but we know these improvements will create an
energy efficient building that hopefully will last another 50 years. If you are wondering about the efficiency of
your home, TVA has a great program available to help answer your
questions. A certified inspector will do
an extensive evaluation of your home and will provide not only a detailed
report, but offer some financial incentives to help with your
improvements. You can read more at http://www.tva.gov/ee/in_home_eval.htm .
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Notice From City of Glagsow
The folks at Glasgow City Hall have asked us to provide you with a copy of the following notice:
A friendly reminder from the City of Glasgow, leaving grass clippings on city sidewalks and streets or dumping trash, limbs or foreign objects of any kind into drainage ways is considered littering as defined by City of Glasgow Code Numbers 93.05 & 130.18. This creates a safety hazard for pedestrians and contributes to drainage issues in our neighborhoods by causing the storm sewers to clog, resulting in unwanted water runoff and standing water. The City of Glasgow Street Department is working hard to keep the streets drainage ways clean of debris but we need citizens to help out. Please follow lawn mowing etiquette' and sweep up and remove grass clippings or sweep grass clippings back onto your own property.
A friendly reminder from the City of Glasgow, leaving grass clippings on city sidewalks and streets or dumping trash, limbs or foreign objects of any kind into drainage ways is considered littering as defined by City of Glasgow Code Numbers 93.05 & 130.18. This creates a safety hazard for pedestrians and contributes to drainage issues in our neighborhoods by causing the storm sewers to clog, resulting in unwanted water runoff and standing water. The City of Glasgow Street Department is working hard to keep the streets drainage ways clean of debris but we need citizens to help out. Please follow lawn mowing etiquette' and sweep up and remove grass clippings or sweep grass clippings back onto your own property.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
New Features For Glasgow-ky.com!!!
We hope you have taken a moment and read the blog post about how to help Glasgow save money this summer. If not, please click here.
Have you noticed the new graphic on www.glasgow-ky.com near the real-time City electric usage graph?
We are working to try to predict when that highest reading might be and inform all of our customers, asking for your help in holding the energy usage down just for those days when we think the peak hour might occur, rather than every afternoon. You will see various notifications posted on Facebook, Twitter, The Weather Channel crawl, cable advertisements and any other format we can think of to get the message out to all of our customers. You will likely see this occur about once each week, but the remaining days in the week will be open for you to use electricity as you desire.
For those of you wondering just what this means, here are the descriptions:
- Load Level Green - This is the standard level for the Glasgow EPB. It means that no peak electric demand is expected and no action is being requested of the EPB customers.
- Load Level Blue - This indicates an anticipated higher electric usage day due to weather or system conditions. EPB customers are requested to limit usage of any unnecessary electric equipment and appliances such as washers, dryers, and dishwashers, and raise the thermostat two degrees between the hours of noon to 8 pm.
- Load Level Red - This indicates an extreme condition due to weather or system conditions. All EPB electric customers are asked to put extreme conservation practices into place from noon to 8 pm. Please curtail any unnecessary electric usage and raise the thermostat to at least 78 degrees, if at all possible.
On Wednesday, June 12, we will put this new system into action, with a Load Level Blue condition. With temperatures predicted for the low to mid-90's, we anticipate that we may set a new peak for the month. (Our peak this month is shown as the orange horizontal line on the graph, and was set on June 5 at 2:00 pm.) Again, as we described in the earlier blog post, our bill from TVA is partially based on this peak, so it pays our customers to keep this peak as low as possible. We're asking for each of our customers' help - whether residential or business. We need everyone's assistance between the hours of noon - 8 pm. Simply think before you turn on that appliance, lower that thermostat or push the start button on that electric powered piece of equipment. Just by making some changes in the way we use our electricity, we can create a savings for all of our customers!
We are counting on each of you to help in our efforts to hold the costs down for the entire community. With just a few minor changes for just a few hours each week, we can make an impact!
Monday, June 3, 2013
We Have a Plan for Saving Glasgow Money
During the past couple of years you have heard us talk about
Summer and Winter peak times for electricity use. We have asked you to curtail your electric
usage in the months of June through September during the time frame of noon – 8
pm each Monday through Friday. Well,
this year, we are going to approach our efforts to save money for our customers
in a different way.
We purchase all of our power from TVA, and each month they
send us the bill for that usage. A large portion of that bill is based upon the maximum, or peak, energy used by
our customers during one hour of each month.
Yes, you read that right, the bill from TVA isn’t just based upon the total amount of energy
used in Glasgow, but also on the highest one hour reading they see during the
month. So, you can see how important it
is for our community to keep that highest reading as low as possible.
We are working to try to predict when that highest reading
might be and inform all of our customers, asking for your help in holding the
energy usage down just for those days when we think the peak hour might occur,
rather than every afternoon. You will
see various notifications posted on Facebook, Twitter, The Weather Channel
crawl, cable advertisements and any other format we can think of to get the
message out to all of our customers. You
will likely see this occur about once each week, but the remaining days in the
week will be open for you to use electricity as you desire.
You can always see how we are doing in trying to stay below
our peak by going to www.glasgow-ky.com
to see the city electric demand graph on the right hand side of the page. The red line represents today’s usage, and
the orange straight line represents our peak.
When you start seeing the red line approaching that orange straight
line, we will ask for your help to control the maximum usage.
If you are at home, just refraining from using your washer,
dryer, or electric range can make a big impact.
For an even greater impact, if you have an electric hot water heater, please refrain from using hot water during that time. Of course the ultimate impact will be to
raise your thermostat just a few degrees so that your air conditioning doesn’t
kick on. If you are at your place of
work, again, adjusting the thermostat a few degrees, and turning off lights in
unused areas can make a difference.
We are counting on each of you to help in our efforts to
hold the costs down for the entire community.
With just a few minor changes for just a few hours each week, we can
make an impact!
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Network Outages for March 24 and March 25
This Sunday evening, March 24, at about 11:00 p.m., we will commence a big project to ready our community for major advancements in the way healthcare is delivered, but that project will cause widespread interruptions to your cable television and internet services for a few hours.
We are proud to have been chosen by T.J. Samson Community Hospital as their vendor/partner for their high speed network connections between the new Healthcare Pavilion and the main hospital, and also to the outside world. We have been feverishly installing new fiber optic cables all over town to provide multiple layers of redundancy for the new medical network, and now we are ready to reconfigure our Jama M Young Technology Center (JMYTC) to accept and terminate the new circuits.
The work has been scheduled during the late evening of Sunday March 24 and the early morning hours of Monday March 25, in the hope that our customers will be least inconvenienced during those hours. Our team will be doing tedious fiber optic cable splicing inside JMYTC and on the street outside our campus during those hours. Half of all EPB customers will be affected, anywhere from one hour to about seven hours. This work will impact both cable television and internet services.
We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but we are also thrilled that our community is going to have such a sophisticated medical network environment. Stay tuned to the Glasgow Electric Plant Board Facebook page for additional updates on this project.
We are proud to have been chosen by T.J. Samson Community Hospital as their vendor/partner for their high speed network connections between the new Healthcare Pavilion and the main hospital, and also to the outside world. We have been feverishly installing new fiber optic cables all over town to provide multiple layers of redundancy for the new medical network, and now we are ready to reconfigure our Jama M Young Technology Center (JMYTC) to accept and terminate the new circuits.
The work has been scheduled during the late evening of Sunday March 24 and the early morning hours of Monday March 25, in the hope that our customers will be least inconvenienced during those hours. Our team will be doing tedious fiber optic cable splicing inside JMYTC and on the street outside our campus during those hours. Half of all EPB customers will be affected, anywhere from one hour to about seven hours. This work will impact both cable television and internet services.
We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but we are also thrilled that our community is going to have such a sophisticated medical network environment. Stay tuned to the Glasgow Electric Plant Board Facebook page for additional updates on this project.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Spring, and EPB Network Updates, Just Around the Bend
The calendar says that spring is just
around the corner, and we are ready for it, because we have a lot of work to do.
Right along with nature’s transition, your EPB team is also planning a spring
full of construction and maintenance to our networks. Some of that activity
will impact the products you purchase from us, so this message is an update on
the upcoming activities.
Over the next several weeks you will
see several notices from us regarding internet, cable television, and electric
power projects that might impact you. As we have been saying for some time, the
very best way to stay abreast of these events in real-time is to “like” our
Facebook page at www.facebook.com/glasgowepb This page has
become the easiest way for us to move timely information out to all 15,000 of
our customers.
The biggest upcoming potential impact
on your internet services comes from a variety of sources. We now connect
Glasgow to the world through high capacity circuits from Windstream and
AT&T, but we are about to add a third source via our partnership with other
cities called MuniNet. Very soon MuniNet connectivity will add a new internet
access point from Level3 in Nashville. Upcoming maintenance activity from
Windstream and AT&T may cause some night time interruptions, or slow downs,
to your internet service from EPB. At the same time, upcoming additional
bandwidth from Level3 should, after our initial testing of the new connections,
enhance your internet throughput significantly. Though
all three of these issues will result in improvements to our product, like all
construction projects, getting through the changes may prove a bit bumpy. Stay
tuned to our Facebook page and our Twitter feed https://twitter.com/glasgowepb
for updates.
We have other network projects that
will affect you as well. In an effort to establish multiple redundant fiber
circuits for TJ Samson Hospital and the new TJ Healthcare Pavilion, we will be
adding new fiber routes into our JMYTC Technology Center at the EPB offices.
That work, and the splicing necessary to incorporate it into the city wide
network, will cause some both cable and internet interruptions, mainly during
the wee hours of the morning, for several hours.
Finally, we also have a couple of large
electric power network projects that may affect you, especially as you drive
around the neighborhoods surrounding our Front Street Substation. Over the next
couple of months a line construction contractor will be performing work doing
what we call “reconductoring.” As the cost of energy has risen over the
decades, we find that some smaller conductors which usually carry large amounts
of current, are simply no longer economically efficient. The upcoming work will
consist of removing the smaller conductors near Front Street Substation and
replacing those with much larger capacity conductors.
We join you in welcoming spring to
Glasgow! Hopefully, spring, along with these projects, will bring us much more
benefits than frustrations.
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