The Red, Blue & Green

Email Upgrade, What We've Learned And What You Need To Know

2012-01-27T10:52:00.004-06:00

If you’re a subscriber to our Facebook page or Twitter feeds, you already know much of the information in this post, but the information is important enough to repeat. On Monday night we installed our new e-mail server, and while the transition went well overall, there were some small issues that need further explanation. This post will provide that information.

Since the transition, some customers have been experiencing problems with returned e-mails; sometimes getting a message along the lines of “unfortunately this message can’t be sent,” and a link to a site called Spamhaus. Spamhaus is a site that collects e-mail information from servers around the world in order to determine the sources of unwanted “spam” email. A list is then published and made available to providers, like the EPB, who can then use the list to determine how to block the spam by “blacklisting” the networks that allowed the spam to be sent and, thus, keep the system running efficiently. It is a great system, and without services like it, we would all be drowning in a flood of junk e-mails. Typically the report is generated by Spamhaus detailing the problem, and the problem can be easily fixed. The provider (in this case the EPB) then simply requests to be removed from their “blacklist,” so that everything returns to normal quickly. Usually this causes a short inconvenience for a few customers and is corrected before anyone even notices.

However, like all things automated, Spamhaus too occasionally breaks, which is what has happened over the last few days. They have placed the EPB on a “blacklist” but gave us absolutely no reason, so we have, in effect, been searching for the needle in the haystack. To make matters worse, Spamhaus is located in England, and they do not have 24 hour support. We immediately engaged Linux Magic, the manufacturer of our new e-mail server, for assistance. We have been working with them the past few days trying to resolve this problem and ensure we are no longer “blacklisted.”

One problem we discovered is that several glasgow-ky.com e-mail accounts had been compromised and were being used by people from out of the country to use our e-mail server to send out spam all over the internet. We have now disabled these accounts and are monitoring the server for more of these. Another problem was found in that some customers had viruses and were also sending out e-mails. These problems were uncovered as a result of our attempts to provide a more user friendly e-mail system for those individuals who use their cell phones for e-mail services.

Our team has worked around the clock since Monday night to resolve these problems. We, along with Linux Magic, continue to monitor the server in our best efforts to prevent any further disruptions in what we feel certain is a superior e-mail product.

Another common question that has been asked by our customers, is “why does the new mail server show that it has blocked 30 spams, but I only see 4 of them in my spam folder?” A very basic answer to a complicated process, each e-mail is rated with a 1 to 10 rating as it passes through the anti-spam system. If you have whitelisted this sender, the e-mail will pass on through. A rating of 1 - 3 will result in the e-mail being delivered. A rating of 3 - 5 will place it in your “spam” or “quarantine” box, depending upon the interface you are using. A rating of 5 or above will block it at the server. The only spam e-mails you will see are the ones with a 3 – 5 rating. Barracuda operated in the exact same manner, it simply didn’t notify you about those 26 e-mails that were blocked with a 5 or above rating. If you want to view your spam with the 3 – 5 rating, simply log into either of the webmail clients and look at your spam folder. You can then move those e-mails, or click on the button in the right hand corner of e-mail pane to whitelist the sender so they will always be directed to your inbox.

As always, if you need any help or have any other questions, please feel free to give us a call at 651-8341 or send an e-mail to email_upgrade@glasgow-ky.com, and we will do our best to help you. And, if you are reading this information for the first time, please consider becoming a fan of the Glasgow EPB on Facebook, as information pertaining to this upgrade, outages and other important issues is constantly updated. Just click on http://www.facebook.com/glasgowepb.

Tonight's Email Server Upgrade

2012-01-23T12:08:00.001-06:00

As we've been mentioning over the past several days. Tonight at midnight the Glasgow EPB

We've been working for several months to make sure that this migration goes as smoothly as we possibly can. We've also given you lots of information over the past weeks regarding this transition. There are just a few key things you need to remember. These are the key differences in this mail server and the old one which might affect you:

If you are a customer that uses a mail client on your computer (such as Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, or Windows Live Mail) you will not have to do anything. Your email will work the same as it always have and you probably aren't going to notice anything different at all.

If you are a customer that forwards email from one account to the other, for example you forward your Glasgow-ky.com address to gmail, then you should log in and check your forward settings in the webmail interface. Over the weekend we wrote a script to import the forwards so it should be fine, just in case it can't hurt to check. You can do this tomorrow morning by logging into the webmail interface at http://mail.glasgow-ky.com and looking under Options>Autoresponder And Forwards.
When logging into the new webmail interface, you must use your entire email address as the username. For example myemail@glasgow-ky.com.
If for some reason you've left all of your mail on the server, then your email will automatically be imported into the new system. To automatically kick this off, you need to log into the webmail at http://mail.glasgow-ky.com tomorrow after the migration. Depending on the size of your mailbox, it might take a few minutes, but your email will show up inside of webmail.
If you had contacts saved in webmail, we've done our best to import them. If for some reason your contact list inside of webmail doesn't get imported, then give us a call or send us an email at email_upgrade@glasgow-ky.com and let us know what you're missing and we'll do our best to get it corrected for you.
Barracuda is going away, we are going to be setting it so that it no longer does any filtering then will be removing in a few days after we're sure that customers have received all of their quarantined mail. The new antispam features are integrated into the email server and the quarantine can be viewed by logging into http://mail.glasgow-ky.com and selecting "Mail Settings" from the drop down box. We have been asked by the mail server creator to not import whitelists yet. The technology the new system uses is different from the Barracuda so it shouldn't have as many false positives as the Barracuda had and shouldn't need as many white lists. Just in case though, we are saving all of your old white lists so we can put them if we need too.

We have been planning this migration for quite some time and we've tried to think of every possible way to make it as painless as possible for our customers. We're sure there will be some issues and we'll have staff on hand to deal with these. If you have any problems after the migration give us a call at 270-651-8341 or send us an email at http://mail.glasgow-ky.com and we'll be happy to help you work through them. Thanks for your patience, and we hope you enjoy the new features given to you by MagicMail.

Important News About Your EPB Email

2012-01-17T13:51:00.007-06:00

No one really looks forward to big changes, and that includes us. We just made some fairly sweeping changes to our cable television lineup and we hate to bother you again so soon, but this coming change is one that will make our email system more resistant to threats, more reliable, faster, and more adaptable to porting our email to other devices and easier to use when you are on the road. So, here it comes.

The Glasgow Electric Plant Board will be upgrading our email on the night of January 23rd. We will be removing the Barracuda Spam Firewall, importing user accounts, and importing user address books. We have been working on this improvement for a few months and we are confident that our extra efforts will result in minimal inconvenience for you. All of your existing email on the old system will also be imported such that when you log into the webmail system you should not be losing anything.

This is an upgrade that we are very excited about and which will be adding much new functionality to our email system. You will not only benefit from the more redundant and stable Linux based system, but you will also see the following features.

You will be able to store up to a gigabyte of email and attachments per mailbox. This means you will be able to keep several thousand emails on the email server where they are safe from things like computer crashes.
The advanced and integrated antispam and antivirus features mean you no longer have to go two different places to check your spam filter. You can simply do it from inside the new webmail interface.
The current trend of smart phones, tablets, and other devices which allow remote viewing of email, accounts for around 40% of the “mail checking” on our current system. This new email solution allows for better security policies which make it easier for us to allow you to check email through these devices.
You will have the ability to manage all of your own email accounts from a central location.

Another new feature with this system is the completely revamped webmail interface. Our current webmail portal, while very functional, lacks a lot when it comes to ease of use and navigation. When using MagicMail you will have the ability to choose from a simple webmail interface called Webmail Lite, or a new and more advanced system called Tuxedo. We will help you pick the one best suited for your use.

Webmail Lite Interface

Tuxedo Advanced Webmail

Tuxedo Calendar System

From inside of either system you will have the ability to send and compose email, manage your address book and manage your settings. Perhaps the most exciting new feature is the ability to manage your “Spam Inbox” as well as customize your spam settings and rules from inside of your mailbox.

Mailbox Management

Spam Settings

We expect this process to go smoothly but, as always, if you have any issues after the upgrade feel free to call us at 270-651-8341 or check our blog, Facebook, or twitter pages for statuses and updated information.

EPB, GE, and TVA Link Up to Study Smart Appliances

2011-12-15T21:16:00.006-06:00

For several weeks we have been talking, in a somewhat vague fashion, about an opportunity coming to Glasgow relative to the study of modern appliances and the way they might help us reshape electrical demand. Now, the whole story can be told. GE and TVA have chosen Glasgow and Glasgow EPB as partners in a groundbreaking study of how real customers might react to Time of Use electric rates using the very latest in appliance technology in real homes right here in Glasgow. The press release making this event official can be seen by clicking on this link.

Now that all of the contracts have been signed among the parties, our work to choose the right homes for this pilot is now in high gear. We have gotten a lot of applications for participation in the Smart Appliance Pilot over the last several weeks. The appliances being offered by GE for this project are all their top-of-the line latest products, and may be viewed by clicking here. If you think you would be interested in hosting the pilot project in your home and possibly receiving this full suite of the GE appliances and new thermostat, then click on this link and fill out the application for the project now. The final choice of homes invited to participate in the initial pilot will be made in mid-January!

Channel Changes Effective January 1 2012

2011-11-28T13:33:00.013-06:00

Over the last several weeks the Glasgow High School football team has represented our community very well on the gridiron, and they certainly continue to make us all proud. During that same time, the Glasgow EPB team has been representing our community on a different sort of game field and we are ready to announce the results.

Our work has been with the broadcast television stations (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and CW) located in Bowling Green, Nashville, and Louisville. Like the football games played by our Glasgow Scotties, the games with the broadcast stations have been hard nosed and hard fought. However, unlike the football games which have sensible rules, these games are designed by the broadcasters, for the benefit of their stockholders, and implemented by legislators and regulators who feel the need to keep the broadcasters, and their huge staff of lobbyists, happy. That means that a small, locally owned cable system like Glasgow EPB, and the folks in a community like Glasgow are getting the short end of the stick.

When our local football teams hit the field, they know what we all want from them. They know that we would like for them to play well, not get hurt, honor the rules, and, if possible, score more points than all of their opponents. When the EPB hits the field of battle with the broadcasters, we know what the community wants from us as well. We know that our customers want as many local broadcast stations as possible on their cable system. We know that some of our customers are oriented to Louisville stations, some to Bowling Green stations, and still others to Nashville stations, and that we need to maintain some of these. Finally, we know that, if possible, you want all of this for very little cost. These have been our objectives in these negotiations.

As the EPB team sought to negotiate new “retransmission consent” agreements with the broadcasters so that we can carry their programming for the next three years, we struggled to accomplish your wants. A few of the broadcasters seemed interested in being a partner to the EPB, and the people of Glasgow, and were reasonable in their demands for payment. However, the majority were totally unreasonable in their demands, and some of those broadcasters will cease to be on our cable system on January 1, 2012, simply because the cost would be too much for our customers to pay.

In this time of economic strife, when so many are unemployed and under other economic pressure, it has been eye-opening and quite informative of the actual attitude of these businesses when they ask for 100 - 400% rate increases for their programming when none of us have increased our revenue by even a small fraction of that amount.

Though we feel the whole game is unfair and that the field is clearly tilted to the advantage of the broadcasters, we still must play the game in order to live up to the expectations of our customers. As a result of the decisions made on your behalf the following changes to our cable lineup will take effect on January 1, 2012, both channels to be dropped and a few to be added:

Channel	Currently	Jan. 1, 2012 Programming
Ch. 09	WSMV-NBC	EPB 24/7 Weather
Ch. 16	WDRB-FOX	AntennaTV substituted in place of FOX programming
Ch. 17	WBKI-CW	WBNA-ION
Ch. 25	WHAS-ABC	Wazoo Sports substituted in place of ABC programming
Ch. 42	EPB 24/7 Weather	WNPT-Nashville Public Television
Ch. 43	WLKY-CBS	Create TV sub-stream of WKYU
Ch. 128	YouTOO Social TV	RetroTV sub-stream of WBNA
Ch. 143	New Channel	My Family TV sub-stream of WMYO
Ch. 176	Ion Life (WNPX)	The Light sub-stream of WBNA

So, to make it totally clear, we are dropping WSMV, WLKY, WBKI, and WNPX. We are keeping everything else, but during the network programming hours we will replace the FOX and ABC programming with new content on WDRB and WHAS respectively. These changes will impact our HD tier some as well. Since we are dropping WLKY, channel 540 on our HD tier will disappear. Since we are dropping WSMV, channel 541 will disappear. Finally, since we are dropping the ABC portion of WHAS, channel 542 will disappear on the HD tier. Channel 516 will still be there but the FOX programming will come via WBKO instead of WDRB. The primary HD network feeds will continue to be 513 for ABC, 514 for NBC, 515 for CBS, and 516 for FOX.

Taken together, these stations, and the increased rate demands they are putting on the people of Glasgow, will take an additional $45,000 per year out of our local economy, even though we are dropping some of the broadcast channels we carry now. If we had chosen to keep all of our present broadcast channels and if we had paid the rates they asked for those channels, the increased cost to Glasgow folks would have been over $250,000 per year more than we are paying today. That is why we are dropping some stations as we have been told by our customers to eliminate duplicate channels, refuse to bow to the unreasonable broadcasters’ demands, and help hold the rates as low as possible for our community. When implementing our recent rate increase we tried to plan for the broadcasters’ demands, and it will not be necessary to increase the rates you pay at this time.

We fought hard for the small victories we achieved on the retransmission consent battlefront, and will continue to do so to serve our customers. This same battle will loom before us next year for some of the major satellite channels and again in 2014 for the broadcasters. This process seems to be without end. If you are tired of being at the mercy of these large companies, contact our legislators and demand that the retransmission consent laws be addressed prior to that time so that the consumers they were elected to serve will be protected, rather than the highly compensated lobbyists and network executives they currently serve.

Look for these changes to take effect on New Year’s Eve. The new channel lineup will be there waiting for you when you awaken on New Year’s Day 2012.

Roll Over or Get Tough - It is That Time Again

2011-10-12T14:30:00.003-05:00

Once again, the Glasgow EPB, is facing some difficult decisions about our cable system. Every three years we, along with every other cable system in America, must negotiate with the broadcasters in our area (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and CW) to be able to deliver their signals to your homes. We are now in that negotiating period and it appears that this might be a tedious, and possibly very costly, process during this term. In fact, some of the early offers from the broadcasters have them trying to extract 100% to 400% increases in what you ultimately pay for their programming.

Just so you will understand this process, here is a quick summary for what is a very complicated matter. The programming on EPB’s cable service is provided in three different ways. EPB Cable6, the GHS Advantage Channel, and the BCHS Trojan TVare all local origination, meaning that everything that is seen on this channel is produced either through the EPB, GHS or BCHS. The overwhelming majority of other channels are purchased. Let us repeat that fact – all channels that you view, other than the three local origination channels and a very small percentage of “less popular” channels, are on our system only because we pay a monthly fee to some distant company based upon our total number of cable subscribers.

The majority of the channels (Fox News, CNN, ESPN, TNT etc.) are delivered via satellite. If you have passed by our building, you may have noticed the huge satellite dishes behind our main office used for this purpose. This technology works very well and is usually only interrupted twice a year when the satellite receiver, the satellite 24,000 miles out in space, and the sun, all line up for a few hours. This is what is called solar outages, and unfortunately there is no solution for this problem for the EPB or the thousands of other cable services who all experience the same disturbances.

This leaves us to the final method of delivery – broadcast – which is the real reason for this discussion. This is the most common delivery system since it has been available even before cable television was invented. For those of you who can remember, homes used to have antennas and, depending on how you set your antenna, or could convince someone to go outside and move the antenna, a broadcast station such as WBKO or WTVF would magically appear on your television. Of course, it was sometimes poor quality signal, particularly when attempting to pick up signals from distant Louisville or Nashville stations.

Today things are much different. The signals are now converted to digital signals and processed through local cable systems. While the digital system usually provides far better picture quality, there are still problems if the cable system reception system is located more than 50 miles from the transmitter for the broadcast signal. Since we are more than twice that distance from Louisville and Nashville, we try to compensate by placing very sophisticated antennae on top of a very, very tall tower. However, even those measures sometimes just aren’t enough. Digital signals either come through perfectly, or they simply don’t come through at all, leaving you with nothing but a frozen image or the dreaded blue screen. On top of that, there are now also laws which can provide Bowling Green broadcast stations (WBKO and its affiliates and WNKY and its affiliates) the right to keep us from carrying Louisville and Nashville stations that our customers desperately want.

As frustrating as that is, the really maddening part is that we now have no choice but to accept this situation, and pay all of the broadcasters dearly for what we used to receive as a free service in our homes. This is all thanks to a very effective lobbying organization for the broadcasters that successfully won over Congress and the FCC. The fees charged by broadcasters, while starting out at a few cents per sub, have now become insanely expensive and are showing no sign of receding, even in this economy. While we are still in the midst of negotiations, it seems clear that we may be unable to agree on the increased fees that some of the broadcasters are demanding, and that some channels presently available on our system may no longer be there on January 1. We will work hard to make sure our customers’ interests are protected, but we must admit that between the laws and the fees, we find ourselves in a painfully vulnerable position to be exploited by certain broadcasters.

Stay tuned for Part Two of this television drama…..

New EPB Project Means 20 Glasgow Homes Get New Appliances!

2011-09-28T07:55:00.008-05:00

Over the last couple of years, Glasgow EPB has been selected to partner with EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute), TVA and Google to experiment wtih various products and services in an effort to demonstrate methods to increase energy efficiency, and discover methods that could be applied to utilities throughout the country. In these projects some local residents have now received products and appliances valued up to $5,000, at no cost to the EPB or our customers.

Recognizing the value of Glasgow EPB's high-speed internet service, and the potential for Glasgow and our customers to provide valuable service to an entire industry desperately exploring methods to improve energy efficiency, an internationally known company has approached TVA and the Glasgow EPB with a new project. Since details and contracts are still being finalized, we cannot release all of the information at this point. However, we hope a full press release will be forthcoming within the next several days. In the meantime, what we can tell you is this highly respected company will provide major home appliances with a manufacturer's retail value of approximately $12,000, to 20 homes in Glasgow for use during a testing period of approximately two and a half years. At the end of the project, the appliances will then become the property of the homeowners chosen.

If you are interested in possibly being included in this project, and are a Glasgow EPB electric and internet customer, and own your home, we invite you to click here and complete the questionnaire. The deadline for submission is midnight November 7, 2011.

Glasgow Energy Campus - A Bold New Idea

2011-08-23T09:10:00.003-05:00

You may have heard about our intent to issue a Request for Proposals on a project we are calling Glasgow Energy Campus. Glasgow EPB, Glasgow Water Company, and the City of Glasgow have been discussing and studying the possibility of developing this “energy campus” approach to unifying the byproducts of the Glasgow Regional Landfill, the Glasgow Waste Water Treatment Plant, and the region's active logging operations. The project will thus form a unified campus to harvest combustible gasses and blend them with a stream of biomass products from logging to produce electric power. The idea has been percolating for a couple of years and has the potential to help clean up our local environment and the watershed which creates our drinking water. The project could also lower costs and improve the efficiency of our area's agricultural animal operations and increase the useful life of our regional landfill. Glasgow Energy Campus might do all of these things while providing a local source of clean, renewable energy for life in Glasgow which is not dependent on an uninterrupted supply of energy from massive utilities like TVA. Since we are on the northern extreme of the TVA grid, a tornado event like the one that impacted Alabama this spring could totally isolate us from our power supply.

We envision a multifaceted project that would include a biomass fueled power generator, development of a methane recovery system for the Glasgow Regional Landfill that would gather and route the combustible gas into the boiler for the generator, and using the effluent from the Glasgow Waste Water Treatment Plant for the boiler's make-up water. Further, we think that alterations to Glasgow’s WWTP could be made to allow local beef, dairy, chicken, and pig farmers to transport animal wastes to the WWTP for conversion to combustible gases which would also be routed to the boiler.

Of course, we would not move forward with this project unless we could be guaranteed that the power could be sold back to TVA for more than the cost of building and maintaining the facility. But, if this project can be designed to be economically feasible, Glasgow would be largely energy self-sufficient and we would make dramatic improvements in our local environment. The use of the WWTP effluent in the boiler would dramatically decrease the residual organic compounds presently being dumped in South Fork Creek. Moreover, if animal wastes could be transported to the WWTP instead of languishing in scores of agricultural animal waste lagoons in Barren County, the purity of the ground water and surface water which drains into Barren River Reservoir should increase. Other positive results would include improving the health of aquatic life in our streams and lowering the cost of treating our drinking water supply. This sounds utopian, but Glasgow might be unique in that we already have a well developed timber harvesting and transporting infrastructure combined with a waste water plant, mature landfill, and electric transmission lines all on the same site. This definitely can work. A preliminary study by Johnson Controls, Inc. has already affirmed that this is possible and economically viable, if the energy can be sold to TVA through Glasgow EPB for about ten cents per kWh.

Barren County is the most productive dairy and beef cattle county in Kentucky and ranks quite high in the chicken and hog production in Kentucky. This proposed Glasgow Energy Campus could help make these businesses more profitable and less damaging to our environment by diverting the waste to a productive and beneficial process. The Glasgow Regional Landfill is collecting municipal solid waste from Barren County and several surrounding counties so a constant stream of methane producing fuel is already available. The biomass aspects of the project would increase the life of the Regional Landfill by diverting wood products that are now going into the facility, or being wasted in other ways.

The RFP process we are now starting will help move the project from a sketchy idea to one which is fully fleshed out and priced. While this further study is needed, preliminary findings predict a $195 million facility that will be carbon neutral, very clean burning due to the availability of combustible gases to enhance the boiler and smokestack efficiency. Glasgow has the resources, and certainly has the need, to plan a sustainable energy economy for the life of our community well into the future. Stay tuned to these EPB postings for more information on the Glasgow Energy Campus as our work progresses.

Rates and Network Investments to Increase on October 1

2011-08-18T15:42:00.003-05:00

The cost of electric power from Glasgow EPB will increase on October 1. And even though no one likes to hear that, and we certainly don’t like to implement it, there are many good things that will come from this move.

A part of the increased cost will come from TVA’s recent decision to increase the wholesale rates they charge the distributors of TVA power like Glasgow EPB. Their increase of 2% comes on the heels of their change to Time Of Use (TOU) wholesale rates which became applicable to Glasgow in April. Even though TVA’s monthly fuel cost adjustment keeps their wholesale rates variable each month depending on their luck in generating power with hydroelectric dams and the market conditions for the coal, natural gas, and uranium it takes to fuel the generators which provide our power, this increase is applicable to their base rates. Their increase will go toward TVA’s plans to idle 18 coal fired generation units over the next five years and replace those units with additional natural gas and nuclear generation facilities. Some of this money will also be used to place additional environmental controls on the coal-fired units they are going to maintain. It is virtually certain that we will see continued increases in our wholesale costs each year as they work through their aggressive plan to transform and clean up their generation resources.

Of course, the best steps that TVA can take to clean up their generation portfolio are those relating to TOU rates which can convince us all to use less power during peak times and more power in the off-peak times. You have surely heard us talking about this a lot over the last six months, and even though most have heard about it, and some have really gotten on board with the plan to change the times of day that we use electricity, most have not yet begun to change their usage patterns. The problem has been right in front of us all each day during the hot summer. A graphic showing our daily energy usage has been in the upper right hand corner of the Glasgow internet homepage all summer, and every afternoon we have had dramatic peak demands – the kind that makes the cost of generating electricity much higher. Obviously, we still have a lot of work to do!

While TVA ponders their revenue needs and how they will further implement TOU rates, locally, Glasgow EPB has been continuing its preparations for the TOU environment. We have been steadily investing and building our electric system and our broadband system to be capable of delivering TOU rates to our customers as soon as TVA makes them available. The local electric rate increase, amounting to about 4.6%, that we will implement on October 1, which is in addition to the TVA mandated increase, will be used to fund projects that continue those system upgrades, and a few other things as well.

We will use the additional revenue to put more technology in place which we hope will make us more successful at convincing customers to change the way they use electric power. TOU rates are already being charged to Glasgow EPB by TVA, and one prime reason for our need to increase electric rates is the poor participation we got from most customers this summer as we asked them to conserve on summer week day afternoons. Since the cost of power from TVA is also going steadily upward, we will use some of our additional revenue to rebuild certain electrical circuits with larger conductors. Some energy is lost in transmission and when the cost of energy goes up, it makes great economic sense for our future to install larger conductor that is less prone to losses than the older, smaller conductors. We also have additional expenses that must be funded. One of those is the large increases in our annual in lieu of tax payments we make to local governments and schools. The addition of our new East Glasgow Substation and the transmission lines coming and going from it have dramatically increased the value of our system. When that happens, just like when the value of your property increases, we are required by law to increase our payments to local schools and governments proportionately.

So, even though no one would wish for electric rates to increase, as you can see these increases will result in additional investment in the local network which is so essential to life in Glasgow, as well as improvements in the TVA network which is so important to our region. Unlike some segments of our country’s highways, bridges, airports, and other infrastructure, TVA and EPB are continuing to invest and rebuild our networks such that they remain modern and increasingly reliable. This is the way we make life in Glasgow better than life in other communities. That is what we are here for and we are determined to do this work for you.

Really, You Should Do the E-Bill Thing

2011-06-28T13:47:00.002-05:00

We’ve talked about the convenience of using our e-bill system before, but there are still plenty of folks who use our internet service, but do not use the simple e-bill system. Hopefully this post will remind you of this great option available to all EPB customers. Once you have tried it, you are certain to like it!

You can sign up for e-billing in a number of ways. First, you can click on THIS LINK and follow the simple directions to set your home or business up for e-billing. You can also use the link on Glasgow’s homepage at www.glasgow-ky.com , the e-bill link is there on the left side of the page right under the EPB logo. Just click on that e-billing logo and follow the directions to set up your account. Of course, if you want to call and talk to one of our customer service folks at 651-8341, they would be glad to help you get set up on e-billing as well.

Here is what comes with your agreement to use the e-bill system. First of all, you will not get a paper bill anymore so your home will be more neat and your trash can will be less full. Next, the e-bill system comes with its own credit card payment interface so you can go on-line and pay your bill from your credit card without incurring additional credit card processing costs from EPB. (We allow up to $1000 in credit card payments per month without charging additional fees if you use the on-line credit card system. After August 1we will be charging a labor fee of $10 per transaction if you call in on the phone to make a credit card payment!) We also give you a $1 per month credit on your bill to reflect the savings we realize from not sending out a paper bill when you sign up for e-billing.

The e-bill system also allows you to review your bill on-line and compare it to previous bills. It is a truly feature-rich and convenient way to manage your accounts with Glasgow EPB. Of course, the ultimate in convenience is to set up your account to automatically debit your checking account. This feature makes sure your bill is paid even if you forget about it or if your are out of town for a period of time. You will still get your e-bill summary long before your account is debited for the payment so you will have plenty of time to see what the bill is going to be and make sure sufficient funds are available.

If you use the internet and have an email account, there really is no reason for you to not take advantage of this service. It cuts down on the paper in your life. It reduces fuel costs associated with driving into the office to pay your EPB bill. It improves your access to information about your bills and gives you easier ways to pay your bill. If you have any questions about getting set up to utilize our e-bill system, please give us a call. We want everyone to take advantage of this powerful option!

You Can Generate Infotricity in Your Home

2011-06-20T10:16:00.005-05:00

Get out your favorite pen, crayon, or marker and make a very large “S” and then cut out that S and lay it over on its side. You now have a graph of the power consumption in the TVA region over a one day period. Congratulations, you are now a scientist! Now your graph can be combined with the real graph of power consumption at my house on a day last week and a day last year with identical temperatures which is shown above and you can see some of the problems and opportunities for solving the issues presently confronting the power business.

Half of the time, generally during the night, power demand is too low and that means that generation plants have to be cycled back or totally shut down. The other half of the time the demand is too high and even after firing up every unit TVA has in its arsenal, they still fall far short of what is needed to meet the power demand. To keep the lights on, TVA must go out and buy additional power from its neighbors during the peak times. Both the constant cycling up and down of their plants during the daily “valley” of demand and the constant daily purchases of power during the daily “peak” cost staggering sums of money and create many other negative environmental impacts. Everyone in the power business is looking for ways to smooth the peaks and valleys of the daily load cycle in pursuit of the perfect situation – a daily load shape that would look like a flat horizontal line.

Though the perfection of that horizontal line will likely never be realized, we certainly can improve on that recumbent “S” situation we have today. Several years ago TVA made a giant move in that direction by building their Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Plant. This facility, just outside of Chattanooga, uses a lot of power during the valley portion of the daily demand curve by pumping water from the Tennessee River up to the top of Raccoon Mountain where TVA hollowed out the top of the mountain to create an artificial lake. This allows them to keep other base load plants operating efficiently during the night instead of shutting them down. Once the lake is full, TVA can turn the pumps into electric generators and drain the lake back down into the river while generating about 1,600 mW of power to offset the peak portion of the next day’s load curve. It is a brilliant project. It works as designed. Today, TVA needs several more of these projects to help further flatten the daily load shape.

In Glasgow we have discovered that they might accomplish this without any construction crews and without hollowing out another mountain. It turns out we all have a little Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Plant in our home! Over the last couple of hot weeks I have been experimenting with programmable thermostats and general changes of power consumption habits in my home and the graphic included here represents the sort of change I have been able to accomplish during a recent 24 hour period (the reddish line) compared to a similar day when I made no effort to shift my consumption (the blue line). Like Raccoon Mountain, I stored energy during the off-peak hours by heating water and pre-cooling my home below our normal set-point. During on-peak hours, instead of draining an artificial lake, we allowed the temperature to rise to 78 degrees and we refrained from running clothes drying and dishwashing. The resulting difference in on-peak power usage at my house last year (the blue line) and this year (the red line) is pretty stunning. As you can see, compared to a day with the same temperatures but without any effort being made to avoid on-peak hours, my simple changes resulted in an average on-peak power reduction of about 4 kW. This is a very big deal.

Now, my measly 4 kW is totally insignificant compared to Raccoon Mountain’s capacity of 1,600,000 kW, but this is 2011 and a lot more is possible by using the latest technology. Today all of the homes which harbor these little bits of Raccoon Mountain can be connected via the internet. In those homes the thermostats, water heaters, appliances, and electric meters can also be connected to create a virtual power plant many times larger than Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Plant. Let’s do the math. Let’s say that the average on-peak demand reduction capacity is only half of what I have been able to accomplish at my house. So, if 2 kW is available in each home and since TVA serves roughly 4 million homes, then about 8,000,000 kW is possibly available in our virtual pumped storage plant! That means we discovered five pumped storage plants of the same size as Raccoon Mountain in our homes! It means that this capacity is available basically for free. It means that this capacity would require no fuel, would generate no greenhouse gases, and would require not one shovel of earth to be disturbed to tap that capacity. Who knew we were hiding infotricity generators in our houses?

Accomplishing the on-peak reduction depicted here in my house was not without some sacrifice. When the house is being pre-cooled to about 72, it can get a little chilly. In the afternoon when it is allowed to warm to 78, it is noticeably warm. We have to remember to run the dishwasher and clothes dryer after 8:00 p.m. and to not use the electric oven in the afternoons. But really, after a couple of weeks the changes are not much of a burden and when you compare the possible benefit of gaining all of this clean energy from simple changes in habit, the burden/benefit ratio is ridiculously canted toward the benefit side. We have been talking about infotricity as a replacement for today’s electric power for many years. Now we have more proof that it is viable. As soon as we learn how to compensate everyone for generating this infotricity and making it available to TVA, every electric power user may also become an owner of the most efficient generation technology ever devised. We are convinced this is a real possibility and we continue to have you to thank for giving us the latitude to explore these ideas.

More Time Of Use Rate Information

2011-06-03T14:37:00.002-05:00

Since June 1 you have likely seen or heard some of our discussion about Time Of Use (TOU) electric rates and how all EPB electric customers can help save the community a lot of money by shifting power usage on weekdays away from the hours of noon until 8:00 p.m. This information has caused us to get some questions and this post is intended to answer them.

First and foremost, the new rate is not being directly applied to anyone at their home or business in Glasgow. The new rate is applicable only to Glasgow EPB for the power we buy from TVA for our customers to use in Glasgow. Of course, if we have to pay it, that means we have to collect the money from our customers. The plea we are making is for you to cut back your afternoon usage of energy so that we can minimize rate adjustments which are necessary to cover the wholesale rates TVA charges us. Our plea for community action is to save the community money.

The idea of TOU rates did not originate with TVA. This rate concept is a long held response to real world events relative to electric power supply versus the demand for electric power. In a very real sense, we have all created the need for TOU rates. We celebrate growth. We are gleeful at the opening of a new big box store in our community even though it consumes gobs of energy. The same goes for the expansion of an industry or the construction of a new school, but we don’t feel the same about the construction of a new nuclear or coal fired generation plant in our town (or anyone else’s for that matter). Therein lies the problem. We celebrate the growth of electric demand but if anyone is paying attention to the news, all of the announcements from the electric utility industry seem to be about decisions to shut down existing generation plants and defer the construction of new ones. This is an inconvenient truth, but a truth nonetheless. We all face a future in which electric power is in shorter supply than it was in the past.

This short supply of energy might not be as ominous as it sounds. In reality, we still have plenty of supply most of the time. In the summer, the exception happens to be on weekdays, from about noon until about 8:00 p.m. During those hours TVA presently depends on its neighbors as TVA does not have adequate generation capacity to make all of the electric power we are demanding. When they go to the neighbors, the neighbors can demand whatever the market will bear for the power TVA purchases from them. As a result, the power is very expensive. This situation will only get worse in the coming years as TVA recently announced plans to shut down several more of their coal fired generation plants.

Now, different utilities have chosen different ways to pay the added expense of this “on-peak” energy. The most popular and simplest habit is to simply move these extra expenses into an account and charge for the purchased power through a monthly “fuel cost adjustment.” No matter whether you get your power from EPB, FRECC, or KU, you have been paying this fuel cost adjustment so, in effect, you have already been paying sort of a TOU rate for years – it just was not called that. The problem with this method is that it socializes the cost of electric power. It provides no incentive for folks to operate more efficiently and move load away from the on-peak time. Instead, all costs are evenly spread across all customers in the form of rate increases. This disguises the truth and penalizes all for inefficiency that could be corrected if folks were given enough information and incentives. After all, if energy is the same cost no matter what time of day it is used, why would anyone take action to move away from the hot afternoon hours with their consumption?

TVA and Glasgow EPB are moving in the direction of providing information and incentives as an opportunity for folks interested in saving money and living more efficiently. This move is not meant to be punishing nor are we forcing folks to swelter on hot summer afternoons. We do not plan to ever force anyone to move to a TOU retail rate, but we do plan on giving those who are interested in modifying their consumption patterns a reward for that change. Those who are not interested in this will likely always have the option of ignoring TOU, but they should be prepared to continue the upward spiral of energy cost. Living in a world of cheap and abundant energy as we have for the last fifty years, is simply no longer going to be an option.

So, all of this discussion about TOU rates is about Glasgow getting prepared for a future that we feel is coming just as predictably as the changing of the seasons. We have invested in a broadband network and advanced electric meters capable of exchanging information between us and your home around the clock. We believe we can work together to change the way energy is used in Glasgow and exploit the coming changes in the rates we pay. We are working to make our community sustainable in whatever fashion that the coming changes in energy supply and weather present themselves. We feel that we are ahead of other communities in preparing for the future. If any of this still leaves you confused, just let us hear from you.

Summer Week Day Afternoons - Time to Cut Back on Power Use

2011-05-31T10:12:00.003-05:00

The summer heat is here and we need your help. Starting today, and running through September 30, we must conserve as much electricity as possible between the hours of noon - 8pm on week days. This is based on two factors, first, effective June 1 the EPB will be on a Time of Use Rate from TVA. This means that there will be an increased charge for power used during the weekday afternoons mentioned above. The second factor is the damage done to the TVA transmission system during the recent tornadoes in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. This heat wave creates stress on an already damaged system, and TVA has asked for assistance to lower the usage as much as possible. Check back here for tips on lowering your usage and helping the community spend less on its power bill to from TVA. Thanks for your help!

Storms, Trees, and Newspaper Articles

2011-04-27T13:37:00.002-05:00

Today's Glasgow Daily Times has an excellent article about the recent storms and the problems they have caused us in dealing with the damage. While the article is completely accurate and true to what I said in the board meeting, I should have done a better job of explaining myself in that meeting. So, I am going to try that now.

The problematic part of my remarks related to downed conductors during storms. No matter what the tone of my remarks was in the meeting and in the article, the one thing that must be remembered is that any downed conductor should be treated as if it were energized and deadly. Although my remarks sounded fine to me as I said them (I'm sure this surprises no one), when I read them in the Glasgow Daily Times, they sounded terrible.

I was trying to explain the problems of having enough personnel to respond to the many calls about downed conductors during several days of intense storms. While it is true that we often can make a judgement about whether a conductor is energized or not from our dispatch center using our telemetry, we still want to get someone out to look at each of them before anyone touches, drives over, or comes near any downed conductor. The problem is, when we have thousands of folks without power and it is 2:00 a.m. and we have only a limited number of folks to respond, it is likely to take a while for us to get there to take a look at a downed conductor. Calling 911 instead of our number does not help the situation at all, it fact, it endangers folks who may have critical information to get to the emergency services folks.

This line of intense, day-after-day weather taxes our team that is designed to be responsive to the sort of weather we get 98% of the time. The only message we meant to get out is that unusually violent weather can cause our response to take longer than usual and we all need to recognize that. But, even if you have to wait a while, treat all downed conductors as deadly energized hazards until someone from our team can arrive to survey the situation.

Roll Over or Get Tough?

2011-04-19T13:46:00.002-05:00

When we fill our vehicles with fuel these days it is impossible not to feel powerless in the face of the big oil companies. When we paid our taxes this week, it is certain that we all felt we paid too much, but we felt just as powerless to change that. We watch the budget process in Washington and in Frankfort and we see waste and greed but we see no way for us little folks in Glasgow to stop it. We feel powerless on all of these matters, but there is another budget battle coming that you can make a difference in – the cost of your cable television service from Glasgow EPB.

The biggest expense we have in providing your television service is what we pay for the programming you enjoy, and that big expense is getting so big that it can no longer be ignored. When we started our cable service in 1988, we charged $13.50 per month for classic basic cable. In the next twenty three years we increased the price we charge for classic basic by just over 100% while the programmers increased their fees 650%! You do not have to be a financial wizard to see how much pressure the programming cost puts on the rates you pay for cable. Just last month, one of Glasgow’s favorite channels, Fox News, increased their fees by 300%! And you thought the oil companies were greedy?

Before the end of this year we will get a chance to strike back against some of the programmers, the broadcast stations to be specific, as they all have to decide if we can carry them on our cable system for the next three years and what that privilege will cost us. You can actually participate in this decision as it will be made right here in Glasgow and we will do what the majority of our customers demand. Should we continue to roll over for the likes of WBKO and WNKY and the many other broadcast stations we carry out of Nashville and Louisville, or should we get tough and drop them if they cannot control their greed? We have until the end of the year on these decisions, so you have time to think about it and get back to us. Could we live with only one ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox station? Must we have duplicates from Nashville and Louisville? Could we live with an ABC from Nashville instead of WBKO in Bowling Green? Here is your chance to be empowered. What will you decide?

Let's Review Glasgow's Relationship to Nuclear Power

2011-03-16T12:36:00.007-05:00

Since the cable television side of our business is presently delivering a steady stream of news about the disasters in Japan, it is only fair that we talk about the electric side of our business and how it is impacted by the total failure of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. We all want to know what this means for us here in Glasgow, and we think there are a few outcomes which are certainly possible.

While we have no idea how things will play out from here with the doomed plant in Japan, and we don’t know anything about the potential health effects for us here in Glasgow from that plant so far away, we do know a bit about the TVA operated nuclear units. TVA has six working nuclear units today. They are: Browns Ferry (at Wheeler Reservoir in North Alabama), Sequoyah (near Chattanooga, TN), and Watts Bar (at Spring City, TN). TVA is also working on a new reactor at the Watts Bar site which will bring them up to seven units total. None of these sites is ever going to be affected by a tsunami, but a well placed tornado or two, even an earthquake, might cause some issues.

The attached video was produced this week by TVA to address many of the questions that area residents might have about their units and what they are doing in the wake of the failure of the plant in Japan. We encourage you to watch this video.

In the longer term, we need to discuss what happens if this disaster causes widespread dissatisfaction with TVA’s use of nuclear power. That is the real issue which we think will impact us in Glasgow. The truth is, there really is no way to generate large amounts of electric power without negative impact on our water, air, soil, and our health. For the last several decades, we, as a people, have been content to trade the comfort and convenience offered by relatively cheap electric power for the health issues created by producing that cheap power. While this is a fact, when one puts that in a sentence it is really unbelievable. We have been trading our health for cheap electric power? And we did this of our own free will? Amazing. What is wrong with us?

TVA has been recognizing the health and environmental issues associated with coal-fired generation of late and they have been moving toward more nuclear generation, and a half-hearted effort to reduce electric power demand, to replace the aging coal-fired fleet. Until this week, it was a consensus opinion that this was a good move, even though new nuclear units are frightfully expensive and TVA’s coming Time Of Use electric rates offer little incentive to get folks motivated to reduce demand. This week, no one knows if that consensus will hold. One this is certain though; Glasgow EPB’s preparation for converting to infotricity is still a viable solution and it will not have any negative impact on our health or environment.

We still believe that there is a vast reserve of electric power available through using the product wisely. We believe our electric network, broadband network, and other technologies can, with the cooperation of our customers, orchestrate a system whereby water heaters, thermostats, and major home appliances can work together in one system to live on ever smaller amounts of electric power generation capacity. We believe it makes much more sense to spend the money that would be spent on new nuclear generation, on better technology, smart appliances, and thermal storage HVAC devices for our homes and businesses. The net effect would be the same additional capacity for the electric grid, but it would be distributed across the region with investments made in millions of homes, instead of just at one address where new reactor vessels and containment buildings would rise.

What scenario will actually unfold as a result of the Japanese tsunami? You get to decide. Will you demand to maintain your home at the same temperature, winter and summer, as you have for the last fifty years? If so, you are voting for the “just build more expensive generation plants” solution. If you are willing to modify the way you have been using power and adapt to our infotricity concepts, you are voting for moving away from the solutions of the past and embracing a future which may be more wonderful than we can even imagine. How will you vote?

The Plunge

2011-03-07T14:23:00.005-06:00

The EPB took the plunge last Saturday! Well… Maybe we should say one brave soul did. Check out this video footage from the 2011 Penguin Plunge, where EPB Engineering Tech. Chris Smith braved the rain and plunged into the ice cold water, to help raise money for Junior Achievement!

Don Doty Leaves the EPB Board of Directors

2011-02-14T21:29:00.003-06:00

On the occasion of Don Doty’s departure from the board of Glasgow EPB, it is fitting for us to review the impact he has had on Glasgow in general, and on the EPB in particular. For those of you who know Don, you will already know how much of an impact he had on the direction of the EPB. For those of you who do not know him, this post will attempt to inform you about this man’s work to forge this place we call home.

Surely most of us have seen the award winning movie Patton. While I never knew Gen. Patton, knowing Don Doty has given me a glimpse into what the General must have been like. My favorite line in the movie comes during an exchange between Gen. Omar Bradley and Brig. Gen. Hobart Carver. In the scene Bradley says, “What we really need is... someone tough enough to really pull this outfit together.” Carver responds, “Patton?” Bradley replies, “Perhaps.” Then Carver delivers the line, with a smile, “God help us!” Even though I wasn’t yet out of high school when Don was dispatched to Glasgow to oversee the creation of the Eaton Axle plant in 1971, and I wasn’t yet at the EPB when he took a place on the board in 1982, I am pretty sure those words were also uttered in both instances.

Don Doty came to Glasgow to oversee the design and construction of the Eaton Axle plant. After it was constructed, he took over as Plant Manager and made the facility a shining star in the Eaton universe until it was sold to Dana. That facility provided jobs and a life for thousands of families during his tenure there. In contrast to the management trends for large industries in Glasgow today, Don and Jamie moved here to Glasgow and became part of the fabric of the community. They created a family here and that family too became a part of the community and they continue to serve and improve our corner of the world. After being sent here, Don passed on several opportunities for further advancement because of his dedication to this place he chose to call home. Greater riches were not enough to convince him to abandon the work he was doing in Glasgow, and all of us benefit from his dedication to our community.

In 1982 Don’s interest in the community and his belief that the needs of the very largest of EPB’s customers (Eaton Axle was then the second largest consumer of electric power in Glasgow - in fact, Eaton’s successor, Dana, is still the second largest) should be represented on the EPB board, lead him to seek appointment to the board. Mayor Twyman agreed and appointed Don to fill the unexpired term of Luke Wells in 1982. At that time Glasgow EPB was scarcely twenty years old.

I met Don about a year later when I had dinner with he and Robert Lessenberry and Norma Redford at the old Bolton’s Landing Restaurant. It was supposed to be a job interview, but Don’s presence and his tendency to ask exceedingly difficult questions, for which there was no apparent correct answer, turned it into cruel and unusual punishment for me. Don is an imposing physical and verbal presence. When I was offered the job and I realized I would be working for him and four other board members, I too said, “God help us!”

Over the next twenty eight years, Don Doty provided the wise counsel and leadership, and the steel backbone, that was essential to form the Glasgow EPB that exists today. He helped me learn how to build and maintain a team of professionals. He gave us valuable insight into the workings of a major industry and helped us understand how to serve them well. He provided the rock solid foundation of confidence that made us believe we could conquer the cable television and broadband worlds. He thought us capable of pulling away from TVA and a few years later, when the power business just did not unfold for us as we thought, he was a crucial element of reversing that decision.

Today, as Glasgow EPB looks at its 50th birthday, Don is passing the torch of leadership on to another capable member of our community, Cheryl Berry Ambach. We look forward to her leadership and we feel confident that the EPB will continue to grow in its mission to serve the community during her tenure. But, we will miss Don and wish him well in whatever battle he chooses next. One thing is certain, when he decides what project to take on next, somewhere there will be someone saying, “God help us!”

Something Scary in Your Mailbox

2011-02-08T13:21:00.005-06:00

When I got my most recent electric bill for my house, I was a bit surprised, and I am supposed to be an expert on such things. So, it would likely be a good time for us all to discuss the electric and gas bills you are getting right now, and the ones you will get next month too. While we all know this winter has been one for the record books, the memory of the snow will melt long before the sting of the cost of staying warm this winter fades away. The truth is, Glasgow EPB is sending out some of the very largest residential electric bills we have ever mailed.

The reason for these sizable bills is pretty simple. It has been colder, for longer, this winter than nearly any other winter on record. . .and it is not over. When you combine sustained low temperatures and day after day of strong winds to go along with those temperatures, the heating systems in our homes struggle to keep us warm. Since the capacity of the heating systems is fixed, the only way they can make up for the demand for warm air is to run longer, and that sucks down a lot more energy. If you heat with electricity, that results in much larger electric bills. If you heat with gas, you already know that this winter has produced staggering gas bills and higher electric bills just from running the blower for the gas heat system.

What can a person do to reduce this financial shock? Well, in the short term for what remains of this winter, not a lot other than keeping the thermostat no higher than 68 degrees (for every degree you set the thermostat higher than 68, your monthly heating cost goes up about 3%), and looking for more cracks around windows and doors that can be quickly sealed with caulk or weather-stripping.

In the longer term, to get ready for this summer and the next winter, TVA has a couple of options to help. First, you can go to www.energyright.com and complete the online energy evaluation. You’ll get a range of ideas and suggested improvements you might make to improve the energy efficiency of your home and lower your electric bills. After you complete the online audit, you will receive a free energy conservation kit you can put to use immediately, as well as a free customized energy report to help you see where your home is wasting energy.

The second, and much more aggressive, option is to contact TVA and ask for an in-home Energy Evaluation. There is a $150 charge for this extensive evaluation but you might be able to get that refunded easily. Once you contact them and pay the fee, they will send a certified evaluator to inspect your home and make easy energy efficiency recommendations. You can reduce your power bill and receive a cash rebate for installing the recommended home energy improvements. To sign up for the In-home Energy Evaluation, visit this link and follow the instructions to schedule your visit. Once you’ve received your audit and completed the recommended energy efficiency upgrades, you’ll be eligible for a reimbursement of the cost of the evaluation, as well as up to $500 in reimbursement for the upgrades you make! You can find all of the details when you call to schedule your In-home Energy Evaluation.

In the mean time, just remember to plan for an electric bill that is quite large compared to your normal winter electric bill. Remember, this is far from a regular winter.

Internet Maintenance Outage Tomorrow Morning

2011-02-03T08:57:00.002-06:00

Early in the morning on Groundhog Day (February 2), we had an interruption to our internet service caused by the unexpected reset of the hardware and software that manages all 5,500 cable modems deployed on the EPB network. Even though we got it restarted about an hour later, we opened a ticket on the event with the manufacturer, Motorola. Since then they have been analyzing our event and have recommended some changes to be made to the system.

To implement those changes we will be required to take down the cable modem system Friday morning (February 4) at about 6:00 a.m. If all goes well, the system should be down only 30 minutes to an hour. Please keep this in mind as you make your plans for Friday morning relative to internet usage. This maintenance will interrupt all cable modem services while the Motorola team and the EPB team work together to solve the mysterious issue with our equipment.

Thanks for your understanding of the need to plan this outage in order to prevent future unplanned outages.

Facebook Friends Find Fabulous Free Stuff!

2011-01-31T10:37:00.004-06:00

About 500 of you have already found the EPB Facebook page and follow our posts there, but the rest of you might have missed this amazing opportunity. Glasgow EPB’s status as a research site for TVA and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has opened a door for a few more test sites for the new General Electric Hybrid Heat Pump Water Heater.

Here is the announcement that we posted last week on our Facebook page:

Good morning! Here's a special offer for our FB fans! How would you like to have a heat pump water heater...for FREE? We're partnering with TVA and EPRI for a project and we have 7 available. The criteria: own your home; 4 persons or less in your household; must have EPB internet service; and, currently have an electric hot water heater located in a garage or unheated basement. Let us hear from you!

So, first of all, if you want to be in the group that hears about these opportunities first, please “Like” our Facebook page by clicking on this Facebook link and clicking on the “Like” button at the top of the Glasgow Electric Plant Board page. This will add you to the growing list of folks who will get the latest information from us automatically on your Facebook news feed. Then, take a few minutes to read about this fantastic new water heating technology by visiting the General Electric site by clicking on this link. If you look at one of these appliances at your local hardware store, you will see that these retail for about $1300 plus installation. If you qualify for this project, you will get the unit for free in return for you simply allowing EPRI to monitor its performance in your home for an extended period of time.

This is just another benefit of living in Glasgow and being a customer of Glasgow EPB. Give us a call or an email if you are interested in volunteering your home for this project.

Internet Outage on Sunday Night

2011-01-20T21:24:00.002-06:00

Sunday night, January 23, we will be doing major work on our internet service. This project will commence at about 11:00 p.m. and should take about two hours. During this time, all Glasgow EPB internet customers will be without internet service.

We have scheduled this work at the time and day of the week when the least amount of traffic is normally on our network. Still, this will be an inconvenience for some, but we really feel that the new equipment we will be installing will make this outage worth the trouble. This upgrade will make everyone in Glasgow have even faster and more reliable internet service through Glasgow EPB.

This will be the first of two such outages which will be required to complete our current internet upgrade plans. We will let you know when the next outage will take place as soon as all equipment is ready to be installed. Thank you for your attention and understanding of the necessity of this outage.

2011 Brings Three Things to Glasgow

2011-01-11T10:15:00.003-06:00

So far, trying to peer into 2011 has been constantly hampered by constant snow fall, but there are big issues for us to ponder. Gather around the monitor and we will chat for a bit about 2011 and three of the things that it will bring to Glasgow.

In February Glasgow EPB will be bringing East Glasgow Primary Substation on line. That means Glasgow will go from getting all of its electric power through a single, 1974 vintage, substation, to an arrangement where half of it comes through the old substation and the other half comes through an ultra-modern, 2011 vintage, facility. At the same time, we will be upgrading our structure at Gorin Park where Glasgow can also receive power from East Kentucky Power during a brief emergency (and the flip side is also true as we will be able to help deliver power to East Kentucky and its local distributor, Farmers RECC, more effectively should they have the need). These improvements will dramatically increase our chances of avoiding very long outages that could occur if our old delivery point substation were to suffer a catastrophic failure. This is a good thing which will enhance our lives in Glasgow as we look forward into a future where violent weather events are more and more common.

While the work is winding down on the new substation, we are also doing serious remodeling and refurbishing work on some other substations and transmission lines in Glasgow. When all of this is completed in early 2011, your electric power grid will have new life and reliability. Of course, even after this “facelift” a well placed squirrel, bird, snake, tree, or errant vehicle can still cause a power outage. So don’t throw out your flashlight and battery operated radio just yet.

Around the middle of the year the second big thing will hit Glasgow in the form of TOU (Time Of Use) electric rates. Since the coming of electric power to our region, that power has been priced on a cents per kWH basis such that the cost was the same no matter when power was consumed. However, over the last several years, due to aging TVA generating plants and the cost of replacing them, the cost of producing power at different times of the day now varies wildly. This year those fluctuating costs will finally be experienced by the users of that power. By mid-2011, if folks are willing to take steps to change the way they use energy, this change could mean lower electric bills. If folks refuse to pay attention and alter their usage patterns, electricity bills will go up considerably.

As the next few weeks unfold, we will be using this newsletter, our television advertising, our blog, our Facebook page (please "like" the Glasgow Electric Plant Board Facebook page if you haven't already!), and every other form of local media to communicate with you about this changing electric power environment. Stay tuned and be prepared to alter the way you interact with your appliances and we can all enjoy the fact that Glasgow has been preparing for this change for many years. We do not have to fear this change!

The third item will not hit us until the last couple of months of 2011, but it is not too early to start thinking about it. At the end of the year we will be negotiating with broadcasters for permission to carry them on our cable system. The negotiations will be very predictable. They will all want more money in exchange for permission for us to carry them. We will be wanting to pay less, or nothing for that permission, and you will be deciding how tough we should be in those discussions. We are anxious to see if the same thinking that swept so many ultra conservative candidates into our Congress will be echoed locally on this subject. Did you know that we are now forced to pay broadcasters like WBKO over $40,000 per year for the rights to put up an antenna, pick up their signal out of the air, and deliver it to you? Do you realize that three years ago when we last negotiated these rates the community asked that we carry even more stations from Nashville and Louisville and that these demands resulted in payments like this to multiple stations in Bowling Green, Nashville, and Louisville (do we really need this many broadcast stations?) and that this resulted in higher cable television rates? Will local folks demand more broadcast channels again this fall, or will the anger over irresponsible spending in our Congress spread to Glasgow and become a demand for us to cut out some broadcasters to save money? Are we really willing to cut services and spending on services to ourselves, or is this just brave talk? These questions must be answered right here in Glasgow as 2011 unfolds.

It is going to be a great year!

IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM GLASGOW EPB!

2011-01-05T22:50:00.002-06:00

Even though they previously promised to cease their practice of using untruths and deception in their attempts to gain internet and video customers from us, the folks at Windstream are apparently at it again. In the last 24 hours we have gotten multiple reports from customers saying that Windstream representatives have told them that EPB is leaving the internet business and that folks must convert to them. THIS IS TOTALLY UNTRUE!

Glasgow EPB is asking the former customers of Cinergy/Norlight to find alternative telephone service. This has nothing to do with our internet service which was just recently upgraded and improved for the long-term future. Please do not fall victim to these determined and unscrupulous sales folks from out of town! Glasgow EPB will not be leaving the internet business, period. Thanks for helping us stop this newest attack from these "nice folks."

Glasgow Residents on the Nice List

2010-12-10T10:23:00.004-06:00

Our fiber optic connections to the world allow us to be in constant contact with Santa’s workshop, and we are happy to report that all EPB customers have been placed on the “nice” list! We thought you should know about this good fortune and what each of you will be getting for Christmas as a result of your niceness.

For those of you who have HD televisions, the good news is that our HD tier of programming is growing by six new channels. They are: Channel 554 - TBS-HD, Channel 555 - CNN-HD, Channel 556 - MSNBC-HD, Channel 557 - CNBC-HD, Channel 560 - Nickelodeon-HD, and Channel 564 - Comedy Central-HD. Along with the new HD channels, all of our nice Digital Tier customers will also be getting eight new DMX music channels.

Oprah Winfrey fans have something coming from St. Nick as well. Just after the first of the year our channel 104 will become OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network).

Our internet customers are on the nice list as well and they will suddenly start seeing even faster internet service at no additional cost. For those customers using our present 2.5 mb service, it will very soon become 3 mb service. For those customers using our faster 5 mb service, they will soon be faster still at 6 mb. These upgrades are just the beginning as further upgrades and other faster speed products will become available a bit later in 2011. HO HO HO!

The most expensive gift that EPB customers have coming to them just after Christmas is Glasgow’s new electric power delivery point at East Glasgow Substation. This is not something you will notice everyday, but it will dramatically improve the reliability and sustainability of our electric power supply in Glasgow for the next several decades. This new $8 million investment will give all of us a redundant power supply in case of failure or damage to our old power delivery substation at Haywood.

Thanks to all EPB customers for being nice and getting recognized as such by the North Pole gang. From all of us at the EPB to all of you folks who we serve, we wish you the Merriest of Christmases and a New Year filled with joy.

Recommended by Local Elves

2010-12-01T13:50:00.003-06:00

The elves in Glasgow’s technology toy land (Glasgow EPB) are busy year round, but at this time of year they are particularly involved in planning upgrades to our internet services. When we gaze into our crystal ball and try to guess what products many of our customers will be putting under their tree, we see a lot of on-line gaming and streaming video products heading toward Glasgow. Since we are virtually certain those items are coming to town, we have had our team busy testing them on our networks, and here is what we have learned.

First of all, we introduced a very large streaming video-over-internet application a few weeks ago when we brought ESPN 3 to our customers. Just last night, when UK played Boston University, we saw a stunning amount of streaming video traffic on our network as many of our customers watched the game via their internet connection on ESPN 3. When folks start using this service and adding video streaming products from Netflix.com and Hulu.com, it is going to require us to dramatically upgrade our network capacity - and we are in the process of doing just that.

Using these streaming video services and some of the new gaming software successfully at your home will also require that you think about upgrading your personal internet connection. Tests in our laboratory find that ESPN 3 and Netflix both work much better using our 5 MB internet service instead of the generic 2.5 MB service. At 5 MB the video does not have to do much buffering, rather, it plays continuously like you are watching a DVD. We have also found that the 5 MB connection is a necessity for viewing HD content over the internet.

The 5 MB connection is $36 per month compared to the $26 that most folks are paying for the 2.5 MB product, but that $10 per month more buys you a lot better performance for the Christmas presents you might be putting under the tree this year. If you are bringing home an Apple TV, one of the new Google TV devices, or any of the many new streaming video appliances, you will not be happy with them unless you also opt for the 5 MB internet service. So, before you open the presents and hook them up, give us a call at 651-8341 to order your higher speed internet service. We can upgrade your service remotely so you won’t have to worry about finding time to meet us at your house.

There is more to this recommendation too. Very soon (perhaps about the same time you open those Christmas gifts), we will be upgrading all of the speeds on our internet services to go even faster! We will also be adding more HD channels for your enjoyment. Christmas time is a big thing for the people of Glasgow who are served by Glasgow EPB. We have gifts coming your way that will bring you additional enjoyment throughout the year, and we aren’t even keeping a list and checking it twice!

The Basketball Talk

2010-11-11T15:53:00.000-06:00

Every year as the leaves jump from on high to the ground, thoughts around here turn to University of Kentucky men’s basketball, and this year is certainly no exception. We are thrilled to have some better news to report on the availability of some UK and U of L sports events this year due to our new agreement with ESPN relative to their internet sports site, ESPN 3. We are also finding that many of the UK men’s basketball games that normally are unavailable to us can be found on tape delay and, sometimes even live, if we are diligent in doing our research (and we are being very diligent!) But, still, there will be a few games that we will lack access to again this year.

Let’s take our annual look at this situation and review how we came to be in this position. First of all, in the very beginning, the University of Kentucky was born as a function of the Morrill Land-Grant Act. This act caused federal land to be granted to the Commonwealth of Kentucky and that land was eventually sold to provide the initial funding for the university. Since then, the people of the Commonwealth have repeatedly stepped up to fund this asset which is owned by the people of Kentucky. The school, its buildings, its brand, its sports teams, and all other assets are owned by we the taxpayer/citizens.

Of course, we all know that many Kentuckians, including a lot of folks in Glasgow, are more concerned with the exploits of UK’s sports teams than the important research taking place in the UK College of Agriculture. In pursuit of success in those sports programs, University of Kentucky has undertaken many expensive projects which must be financed somehow. Our problems come as a result of many years of relentless pursuit of sports excellence and the money required to finance those programs. In particular, we have a problem with the way the UK Athletics Department has been willing to enter into agreements to sell the television rights to this programming to companies that, in turn, demand ridiculous fees and outlandish profits for the rights to view the games they purchase right here in Kentucky.

Remember, at the beginning and end of the day, the sports teams belong to the people of Kentucky. The buildings they practice and play in belong to the people of Kentucky. The faculty and staff that deliver the education of those sports stars is paid for by the people of Kentucky. As a result of these simple facts, we have developed a simple belief – we think that the people of Kentucky should get a special Most Favored Nations rate for access to the games played by our teams. In short, since we are paying for all of the facilities while folks in other states watching these games are generally NOT paying for UK’s buildings and faculty, we think it is fine for them to pay whatever the programming company wants to charge them for the games, but we think we citizens of Kentucky should get them for the price of the taxes we have already submitted!

This seems like a simple matter and a fair solution, right? Well, as yet, no Kentucky legislator has been willing to suggest this solution in the form of a bill. As a result, small cable operators like Glasgow EPB, even though well within the boundary of Kentucky and made up of folks who have already paid for these teams once, are asked to pay about $100,000 per year for the games on Fox Sports South and other newly minted UK basketball game owners. We cannot add these services as premium channels so that only those willing to pay the price get them. No, the aggressive demands of the likes of Fox Sports South mean that we would have to provide the service to all of our customers, and pay for each of those customers, or not distribute the programming at all. So, even though many would gladly pay their portion of this ransom, our customers have repeatedly told us that we should stick by our guns and refuse to pay this rate because it is blatantly unfair and unjust. Just like the movement that is now sweeping into our federal government, it is time to say no to those who think we are a soft touch and unable to stand up to their demands. This determination to do what is right is the reason why a very few of the UK men’s basketball games will not be available on our cable system again this year.

Remember, most games will be available to our customers via cable or the ESPN 3 site. We urge you to become familiar with the link at the middle of the www.glasgow-ky.com home page called “What’s On EPB Cable?” where you can find special information about local programming and the highly desirable UK and U of L sports programming. Click on that link to see where you can find the games you want to see (and lots of very good local events programming on Cable6 as well as our suggestions for other programming you do not want to miss). As always, please call us with any questions you have about these issues.

New E-bill Coming Your Way

2010-09-23T19:35:00.002-05:00

A lot of us now routinely get e-bills from our utilities and credit card companies instead of the old conventional paper bill. Glasgow EPB started offering e-billing several years ago, before the process really had all of the kinks worked out of it. A large number of our customers in Glasgow opt for the e-bill and many follow up on the e-bill by also making their payments online. If you are one of those, or if you want to check into becoming an e-bill customer, things are about to get a lot easier and better for you!

As part of the process of preparing for new electric rate designs starting next year, we are changing all of our billing over to a new system. While this process is dreadful for the folks on the EPB team, it is going to open the door to a much nicer e-billing system. Very soon all existing e-bill customers will be getting an email from us with a link to a new sign up site. Do not be afraid that this is some sort of fraud email! It will be the real deal! Once everyone signs up as they are prompted to do, then they will start getting the new e-bill and they will have access to some exciting new features. First of all, everyone will have access to their historic bills. Folks who pay online will have the new option of storing their credit card information so that they will not have to enter it each month.

These new features will not be just for existing e-bill customers. We are hoping that these features will cause everyone to reconsider going paperless and getting their bills via email. We will be posting a link to the service so that everyone can sign up at their leisure. I can assure you, once you get started using this method and reducing the amount of paper piling up on your desk, you will fall in love with e-billing.

Call us at 651-8341 if you need help signing up for the new e-billing from Glasgow EPB!

Want to Save $50 per Month?

2010-09-14T21:12:00.005-05:00

Saving money was not the goal when I started down the path toward having no wired telephone service, but that is the final result! Like everyone else that was using the EPB/Cinergy/Norlight telephone service, I was told that Norlight planned to abandon the Glasgow market by the end of the year and that I should make arrangements for an alternate service provider. After procrastinating for a couple of months, here is what I did.

Our situation is probably very similar to thousands of other families in Glasgow. I have a cell phone, my wife has a cell phone, and we had the old reliable wired phone service to our house. For years we have seen the habit of younger folks to save money and complication by simply using one cell phone and one phone number for all voice communication. As we contemplated the move from Norlight’s service to some other provider, we decided to jump into the same sort of telephone environment which has been working fine for our children. Not only has it worked just fine, we are saving the $50 or so per month that we were sending to Norlight!

The first step was to go to our cell phone provider (we happen to use AT&T but this will work with any of them) and tell them that we needed a new cell phone with Bluetooth and GPS features, and we told them we wanted to port our home phone number to the cell phone. This took a bit of discussion as they needed our Norlight account number and we had to agree to pay a $30 one-time charge to port our home phone number to the cell phone. We were also told that the actual port might happen anytime from three days to thirty days out, but we were determined to accept this vague transaction. My wife left the AT&T store with a new Samsung phone armed with Bluetooth and GPS.

Next we bought this amazing little device http://www.myxlink.com/xlink_bt.aspx called a Bluetooth gateway. We got ours online and simply plugged it in and followed the directions to pair it up with the new cell phone. The thing is simply amazing. When the cell phone is within about twenty feet of the device, they “pair” using the wireless Bluetooth technology. Once they are paired and the device is plugged into any telephone outlet in your house, all of your home phones ring when someone calls the cell phone. Similarly, you can use any of the regular phones in your house, just like you always have, to answer and make calls. The only difference is that the calls are coming and going through the cell phone instead of through a wired telephone provider but you really cannot tell the difference. This is all accomplished simply by bringing the phone into the range of the Bluetooth gateway. After the initial pairing, it happens automatically as you come and go from then on!

About four days after the initial visit to the AT&T store, calls to our old home number started ringing through to the new cell phone. Once that happened, we disconnected our home from the Norlight service and finished plugging in the new Bluetooth gateway. Since then, our home phone service acts just like it always did when we are at home and the cell phone is paired with the gateway. When we are gone, we take our home phone number with us via the cell phone. And there is more.

One of the fears we had in making this transition was the lack of location identification if we had an emergency and had to call 911. However, since we activated the GPS feature on the new cell phone, I am happy to report that test calls to 911 have, so far, reliably resulted in them seeing my address on their screens! I find this simply amazing.

So, at the end of the day, we are saving the $50 per month that we were spending on our Norlight telephone line. We canceled the old cell phone so now we are just out for the monthly cost of two cell phones. This should be very exciting for all of you who are trying to decide what to do about the end of Norlight telephone service in Glasgow as well as everyone else who has a wired telephone line and the desire to save some money. This solution seems to work amazingly well and we will miss fewer calls since we will be taking our home phone number with us when we are away. If you would like help in accomplishing this same result at your home, give us a call or an email.

Glasgow - An Internet Savvy City

2010-09-08T10:09:00.003-05:00

Back in 1994, Glasgow EPB brought the internet to Glasgow and introduced the world to the use of broadband to deliver high speed internet access. In those days many already had internet access, but, other than in Glasgow, it was done via exceedingly slow and cumbersome telephone based connections.

Sixteen years later, most would be shocked to learn just how much data comes and goes between Glasgow EPB internet customers and the rest of the world. New switching equipment at our Jama M Young Technology Center gives us the details. Each day our customers send and receive over two terra bytes of information via their EPB internet connections. That is the equivalent of 500,000 digitized songs per day, or about 500 million average magazine pages! In fact, at the present rate of data transmission to and from Glasgow EPB customers, we are consuming information equal to all of the printed books in the United States Library of Congress every week.

You might also be amazed to learn just how popular Glasgow’s original website, www.glasgow-ky.com is. On average, that page is called up four times per second, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

Glasgow may be a very small rural city inhabited by only about 15,000 folks, but those folks all have a tremendous appetite for information!

What We Did This Summer

2010-09-01T16:01:00.002-05:00

Now that the hottest summer on record is finally winding down, we have had some time to do some work other that just trying to keep power flowing and the air conditioning running in Glasgow. Part of that work is now visible on the main www.glasgow-ky.com page in the form of a new link to ESPN 3.

About this time every year we are faced with customers that want certain sports programming that is not available in our market, or which is so highly priced that it is out of the community's budget range. This year we have found an affordable solution in ESPN 3. ESPN 3 is a way to deliver just about all sporting events that ESPN covers, from anywhere in the country, to your computer screen. Say you just moved to Glasgow from Texas and want to see the Aggies play -- you can watch the game on your computer via our new deal with ESPN 3! If you want help figuring out how to hook your computer up to your television so it feels the same as watching the event on regular ESPN, just give us a call and we can help you with that as well. Look for the ESPN 3 logo and click on it via the Glasgow home page. After you do, finding the game you want should be pretty self-explanatory.

This service is just another expansion of the high speed internet service operated by your locally owned Glasgow EPB. There have been a lot of rumors and bad information circulating around Glasgow of late regarding our cable and internet services as we distance ourselves from the telephone business. Anyone who tells you that this company, or that company, has bought out the EPB's cable or internet business is simply telling you something that is totally untrue. We are in the midst of massive upgrades to both our cable and internet services, and if you leave our services for a competitor just because of our change in philosophy about the telephone business, you are leaving the very best services available in the 42141 zip code! We invented high speed internet access in Glasgow, and our services will always be the ones where new technology is first delivered to the people of Glasgow. We have no other communities to serve but this one.

A Very Hot Evening for 350 Homes

2010-08-12T10:53:00.001-05:00

About 4:00 yesterday afternoon Glasgow was struck by a particularly intense lightning storm. We had lightning strikes that resulted in damaged equipment in many parts of town, but the worst damage and largest group of customers suffering an outage came from a strike to one of our circuits feeding out of Gorin Park Substation. This circuit fed all of the East Main area and a large portion of the central business area of Glasgow.

When that particular strike occurred the circuit opened immediately plunging about 350 customers into sweltering darkness. Normally lightning strike outages are a pretty quick fix, but the time of day and the temperature combined to make it nearly impossible to restore the circuit to normal yesterday.

When temperatures are extreme and electric power usage is very high, restoring power after an outage can be difficult. This comes from us attempting to pick up the starting load of every air conditioner and computer and industrial machine connected to the circuit at one time. This is a bit complicated, but suffice to say that such conditions can result in momentary electric demand being roughly twelve times the normal demand until the air conditioners and motors get back up to speed. That happened to us yesterday evening and then we had to go to extreme, and time consuming measures to cut the circuit down and pick it up in little pieces to get it to hold. This was our first extensive outage caused by the extreme heat this summer, and we certainly hope it will be the last.

You can help prevent these events by paying close attention to the clock, the temperature, and the appliances in your home or business. Until this amazing heat wave breaks, every weekday afternoon from 2:00 until 8:00 p.m. will be critical to the electric system. ANY electric power usage you can defer from those hours will help stabilize the electric grid. More particularly, if your home or business does experience an outage, please turn all possible loads off while we are attempting to restore the power. This will greatly enhance our chances of getting overloaded circuits to hold.

For those of you who suffered nearly five hours of power outage during extreme heat, we sincerely apologize. Also, for those of you who did suffer but continued to call and encourage us, thank you so very much. We truly are all in this together!

Little Storm - Big Power Outage

2010-08-05T08:20:00.005-05:00

If you are one of the many who follow our Twitter feed at this link or our Facebook page at this link you already know what happened last night. In fact, if you have our Twitter feed going to your cell phone, you got our updates as the outage unfolded. If you are not taking advantage of these services, then this will give you some information about what happened last night.

About 10:00 p.m. a burst of wind, or a lightning strike, caused a large tree, several dozen feet away from our transmission line just south of town on 31E, to fall toward the transmission line which also carries one of FRECC's distribution circuits. Since we had 90% of the town switched to feed from this line as part of our abnormal configuration during the construction of our new primary substation, when that tree tripped out that transmission line, 90% of our customers were in the dark.

We knew this was a risk when we decided to build the new substation and to reconfigure our network to allow its construction. It is just like major construction on the interstates. We all hate the reduced speed limits and the endless ocean of orange barrels and concrete barriers, but it sure is wonderful when the work is done. Such will be the case after November when East Glasgow Primary is energized and serving our community. But, until then, we are going to be constantly aware that falling trees can wreak havoc on our lives here in Glasgow.

Last night our team found the tree and, in concert with FRECC folks, got it cut up and removed from the transmission line, allowing us to restore all power in about 90 minutes from when the tree fell. Some of our customers were back in service sooner as we found a way to re-route power to about half of the city by about 11:00.

Again, if you will click on the links above and sign up to receive our Facebook and Twitter updates, you will know about these events as they happen! Thanks for your understanding and confidence in us as we work to create an electric power network which will serve our community very well for many years into the future.

UPDATE:
At about noon on Thursday, 3,000 EPB customers experienced another outage when an undetected wiring problem at Front Street Substation resulted in a circuit breaker trip during a maintenance operation. We were doing this during extreme weather, just to make doubly sure that the system would hold after reconfiguring several things during the Wednesday night outage. Hindsight is 20/20 and now we wish we had just left everything alone until early Friday morning, but, we took a chance and it bit 3,000 of our customers as a result. We are very sorry and will learn from this mistake. Everyone was back in service within an hour, but even that was a major inconvenience that we are sorry to have caused.

A Stream of Wind, and Falsehoods Blowing Through Glasgow

2010-08-03T11:22:00.005-05:00

There is a lot of buzz in Glasgow these days about telephone, cable, and internet service. A very small amount of that buzz is about something that is actually true. The rest of it is being promoted by out-of-town representatives of a large telephone company that does business in Glasgow, even though they don't care enough about our community to actually keep an office open here.

The true part is that Norlight, Inc. (the company that used to be called Cinergy Communications) has made the decision to leave the Glasgow market by early next year. This is the company that provides telephone service over the Glasgow EPB network, and for whom EPB used to do the billing and perform trouble call work. Norlight recently announced in their monthly billing that all Norlight telephone customers in Glasgow need to begin the process of looking for an alternate telephone provider. We understand this decision since wired telephone service is really on the decline as more and more folks go for cell phones instead.

The false part of the buzz is being created by sales people for the large telephone company. They are reportedly knocking on doors all over town and telling a variety of untruths. They say EPB is leaving the internet business. This is totally untrue as we are in the middle of major upgrades to our internet system. They say EPB is leaving the cable television business. This is totally false as our commitment to providing the best cable television service available anywhere is a main priority for our team.

So, we are pulling out all of the stops with our video advertising, this blog, and even our Facebook pages, to make sure that those of us who actually live and work here know the facts. If someone knocks on your door and tries to continue spreading these lies, please feel free to set them straight for us!

Click Here To View The Video

Internet Road Construction Warning!

2010-07-19T15:08:00.001-05:00

While you are sleeping on Tuesday night, we will be working on some of the technology that makes your internet service work. At about 11:00 p.m., we will be dramatically upgrading the main switch that connects Glasgow’s broadband network to the outside world. If everything goes well, everyone’s internet service will be down for only a few minutes. If everything does not go well . . . well, we will get back to you on that.

Keeping Glasgow’s internet service slippery fast and reliable requires constant equipment upgrades and improvements. This one just happens to be one of the biggest ones we have had to tackle in a long time. But, that also means it is likely to be one of the most important and should help prepare us for a long list of future upgrades we already have planned. As always, we will keep you posted as these projects develop.

About this Morning...

2010-06-22T09:22:00.004-05:00

Unless you are one of a very small group of EPB customers served by our R.R. Donnelley Substation, you got a surprise this morning around 5:30 when your power went off. Even though this happened on what is going to be the hottest day of 2010 (so far), it really had nothing to do with the heat or the capacity of our network. Rather, like most power outages that are not associated with a storm, it happened because of something really small cascading through our network to become something large, all within a time of less than one second.

For those of you interested in the blow-by-blow account of what happened, here goes. First, a number of birds congregated on a pole near the square in Glasgow and caused a short circuit from a 7200 volt circuit to ground. That fault should have been cleared by the nearby Front Street Substation circuit breaker, which would have opened and closed, clearing the bird issue and causing only a momentary blink to the power of about 300 homes and businesses. This morning, that circuit breaker failed to do its job, so its backup protective device took over. That device is something we really don't like, and we are actually preparing to replace, but today, on June 22 2010, it was still in service. This device, a grounding switch, creates another fault on our 69 kV transmission line so that yet another device at our Haywood Substation operates to clear the fault. That circuit breaker at Haywood did interrupt the circuit and the fault, but that operation created a very large outage affecting nearly everyone in Glasgow.

Once the EPB team got some pants on and got rolling, we were able to diagnose the problem pretty quickly and started getting Glasgow's electric power back on. All but that original circuit at Front Street were back in service an hour later. We finally bypassed the circuit breaker that failed to properly clear the fault initially and our folks are still doing triage on it to ascertain why it failed to perform. Hopefully it will be back in service and all of our assets will be available for duty later in the day when the temperature is supposed to be 100 degrees. This is all in a day's work at the EPB.

This whole event just underscores and validates our decision to add a second power delivery point to Glasgow (which is under construction right now). By the end of the year an event like this would affect a much smaller segment of the community since the transmission circuits will be smaller and more redundant. The ground switches and Front Street Substation and Industrial Drive Substations will be removed and replaced with modern protective devices driven by our ubiquitous fiber optic network. Still, even with all of the new technology that is on its way, strange events relating to birds, squirrels, car accidents, and other odd circumstances will happen. When they do, you can count on the EPB team to jump up and take action. That is what we do!

Glasgow's Chance to Plug the Hole in the Gulf

2010-06-08T13:46:00.001-05:00

One out of twenty people on the face of planet earth is an American, but Americans use one out of every four gallons of oil produced on the planet. This obvious imbalance is the underlying reason why an out-of-control oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is fouling the ocean and is going to foul hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles of pristine shoreline. This environmental disaster proves that there is really no such thing as cheap energy. There is always a price to be paid which is far greater that the price at the pump or the price at the electric meter. The only way to reduce the price is by reducing our consumption to a level equal to our fair share of the world’s resources. We need to stop using 25% of the world’s energy and move toward that 5% level which is proportionate to our population.

How can we Glaswegians help move our society in this direction? Obviously, even if everyone in Glasgow drastically reduced their fossil fuel footprint, the result would not make a toenail’s worth of difference in that footprint. Still, every move we locals make in the right direction improves Glasgow’s economy and our quality of life. We might not solve our country’s problems, but we can certainly improve our back yard. Let’s talk for a minute about how we can do that.

The most direct route to reducing the need for risky offshore oil drilling is for us to use less oil. Driving less is the best way to accomplish this reduction (also using less plastic would help a lot too), and, as it turns out, fewer miles driven has an immediate impact on the livability of Glasgow. Substituting bicycles or walking shoes for vehicle miles benefits the community as a whole and you personally. Did you know we have a newly formed group that is trying to convince local governments to create better sidewalks, trails, and cycling facilities to make it easier to commute by walking or cycling? The group is a subset of Sustainable Glasgow, Inc., called Bicycles of the Barrens. You can read more about their work, join them, and participate in this movement by clicking here and following them on Facebook.

Reducing the number of miles we drive is not something that will come easily, but, even without the present crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, everyone must recognize that oil supplies (like coal supplies) are finite and sooner or later we will all be driving less because less cheap energy is going to be available. Does it not make sense for us to prepare for this now instead of being caught off guard some time in the future?

Of course, for us to be able to enjoy a pedestrian lifestyle and save on the amount of gasoline we use, we need to have plenty of local shops and restaurants open within easy reach of folks walking or cycling from their homes. How can we bring this about? We can commit to spending more of our dollars within our own zip code! If we want more local restaurants that we can walk to, then we need to go to local restaurants more. If we want more local clothing stores, bakeries, bookstores, coffee shops, hardware stores, and appliance stores, then we need to stop wasting the gas going to another town to spend local dollars in their stores and restaurants. We can save our community and help plug the hole in the Gulf with simple, enjoyable acts like walking to a locally owned restaurant and eating there. This is not an act of sacrifice! It is an opportunity to have a vacation experience right here in Glasgow and do something to plug that hole in the Gulf.

All forms of energy, oil, electricity, natural gas, suffer from the same risks and environmental costs that are never accounted for until a disaster like the TVA coal ash spill or BP’s present oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico strikes. So, we should talk about what we can do to reduce our energy demands on the planet through electric power as well. For many months we have been using this blog to talk about the need to reshape the way we use electric power during the day. Not only have we been talking with you about it, but for the last twenty years we have been preparing for a world where electric power would be priced according to the time of day in which the energy is used. There is a reason for this.

We purchase our power from TVA and TVA mostly burns coal to produce that power. For about twenty years TVA has sold that power at very low rates which sent the signal for folks to use all of the power they wanted, no matter what time of day they might want to use it. This signal has worked so well that, today, on a hot summer afternoon from 2:00 until about 8:00, TVA no longer has the capacity to generate all of the power we are using. To keep the system stable, TVA calls up it neighbors and purchases power from them. Of late, even the neighbors do not always have enough reserves to satisfy our spiraling demand for electric power. So, TVA finally decided to face reality and announced that they would join nearly every other electric utility in the nation and start charging for electricity based upon the time of day. We are fine with that as we have the technology to do that, but, a majority of the other TVA distributors feel they are not ready and have steadfastly opposed any move toward this imminently sane solution to a real problem. As a result, Glasgow’s readiness to help with our nation’s energy problems is still moot because our energy supplier will not sell us energy in a way which allows us to utilize our technology. Meanwhile, our coal plant smokestacks keep belching CO2 into the atmosphere much like BP’s gusher is sending oil and natural gas into the Gulf.

Glaswegians can make some headway on this problem as well. On weekdays this summer, start thinking about what you could do to reduce the energy consumed by your home or business between 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Delay washing clothes until later or do them on the weekends. Start thinking about these peak hours and how you might actually reduce the money we send out of Glasgow to TVA by proving how you can respond to price signals like these. Then, when TVA finally allows this system to be implemented, you and we will be ready and able to exploit these new rates. We will reduce Glasgow’s energy footprint and, hopefully, spend those dollars saved in local businesses which will, in turn, continue to enrich our lives in Glasgow. This vision of a perpetual circle of economic vitality is what we are talking about when we talk about creating a sustainable local economy. This is what we call localism. Localism might be the only fabric strong enough to patch the hole at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and we can start weaving it right now.

Want to help solve our energy mess? Live Local.

This Sounds Impossible, But Read On

2010-05-14T15:46:00.002-05:00

If you have been watching the news lately you might have heard about the wayward satellite. This link takes you to the ABC News report on the matter. It sounds like science fiction, but we are actually beginning to get warnings from some of the programmers about what this might look like at our homes.

The fact is that one of the satellites orbiting the earth, normally used to bounce cable television signals off of for distribution to cable head ends like ours, has stopped responding to commands from the control center. Even worse, it has started wandering around up there and is about to drift in front of another satellite that carries a lot of the programming you watch on our cable system. Yikes! This is likely to result in some interference to the programming carried on that satellite.

The predictions we are getting go like this: beginning on May 23 and lasting until possibly June 7, you may experience tiling, freezing, or total signal loss for periods, from minutes to hours, on many cable channels as the errant satellite comes between the working satellite and our receiving dish here at the EPB. This problem will affect all North American cable systems!

Obviously, the satellite operators are working on contingency plans to make this as painless as possible, but then I hear BP is doing the same thing at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico right now and most of their solutions are not working. I hope the satellite folks have more luck with something 22,000 miles above our heads! At any rate, start thinking about this in the coming weeks. If you see a program fall apart, it could very well be caused by this wandering satellite!

We Lost on Jeopardy

2010-03-26T12:41:00.004-05:00

CATEGORY - COMPANIES WHO CANNOT STOP DEMANDING MORE FROM GLASGOW

For $100 - This Bowling Green based television station does not want you to be able to watch Jeopardy at 6:30 on cable in Glasgow.

*ding* What is WNKY in Bowling Green? CORRECT!!

This little imaginary segment of Jeopardy is meant to bring the latest demand from WNKY into focus for Jeopardy fans in Glasgow. Hot on the heels of demanding that we interrupt WLKY network feeds on our cable system, comes the latest from WNKY. They now want to use their broadcaster powers to force us to also black out the Jeopardy broadcasts from WLKY which appear at 6:30 weekdays on our cable system.

We have agreed, since we really have no legal alternative, to start interrupting Jeopardy on WLKY at 6:30 just as soon as the other video providers in our area start doing the same. This could occur as soon as April 1, so we want everyone to be prepared for this. Concerns and complaints about this demand should go to the folks at WNKY - Bowling Green. Their phone number is 270-781-2140.

BG Friends to Interfere with Your Cable Reception

2010-03-03T16:12:00.004-06:00

There are things in the cable television world known as “network non-duplication” and “syndicated exclusivity.” You don’t actually want to know about these things because they are only rights, requested by a bevy of lobbyists working for the National Association of Broadcasters and granted by the legislators and regulators they have been able to “influence.” Once granted, these rights cause you to get less than what you should from your cable television service. We wish we had never heard of these terms either.

Instead of explaining these ill-conceived rights, let’s just talk about what affect they are about to have on your television viewing pleasure. Starting very soon you will notice that channels 43 and, maybe 540, (WLKY - CBS from Louisville) will be dark when CBS national programming is on. This comes as a demand from our friends in Bowling Green at WNKY. You see, our carriage of their programming on channels 7, 8, 514, and 543 is apparently not enough to satisfy WNKY as they are intent to press their Network Non-Duplication rights. They want to use these rights to make themselves the only CBS signal you can receive in Glasgow (and were it not for the fact that the FCC forbids them from interrupting WTVF - CBS from Nashville, they would likely be successful). So, with the exception of some locally originated WLKY programming, like their nightly news, and a few sports events, you can pretty much say goodbye to WLKY because of the demands of WNKY in Bowling Green (their phone number is 270-781-2140).

Syndicated Exclusivity, the other thing you really don’t want to know about, is another tool that WNKY in Bowling Green is attempting to use on you and it may cause even more inconvenience and interruption to your television viewing habits. Under this right they can make us black out dozens of syndicated programs like Rachel Ray, Martha Stewart, Dr. Phil, Judge Judy, Jeopardy, and many others so long as they appear on a channel other than WNKY. This would cause havoc, not to mention great expense for us, and your immediate reaction will be to be mad at us. So, we are attempting to negotiate some sort of settlement with them to avoid this ridiculous demand which will do nothing but cause pain for the people of Glasgow due to the demands of a broadcast company in Bowling Green.

We will keep you posted on how these discussions with WNKY are going.

Glasgow's Economy -- We have an Idea or Two

2010-02-25T16:00:00.006-06:00

Even though I now sport a head full of thinning gray hair, I still am not old enough to know all of the story behind why the large industries, that once were the economic backbone of our community, originally came to Glasgow. But a large part of the story likely involved the fact that, back in the 60's and 70's, labor and land were cheap here compared to the large cities. Those advantages, coupled with the robust and underutilized infrastructure, and a highly dedicated pool of workers, that already existed in places like Glasgow, lead facilities like R.R. Donnelley, Tyson Bearing, Eaton Axle, and Mallory Capacitor to come here, and provide employment and prosperity here, for many years. Unfortunately, those same advantages are now available to companies in places far from Glasgow, and, as we all know, some of our key industries, the former lynch-pins of our prosperity, are leaving Glasgow to drink from those new reserves of cheap land and labor.

What should we do to reinvent ourselves and create new reasons for companies to come here and offer jobs and prosperity to our community? Perhaps everyone has an idea or two about how to answer that, but we are working on one of our own that you might want to know more about. Our idea is another angle on the principles which underlie our Sustainable Glasgow initiative. In other words, we thinking about new ways to improve our local economy by drawing upon assets that we already possess. Sustainable Glasgow presently focuses on factories that we own that are not about to leave - our land and our ability to grow food on that land. The new idea that Glasgow EPB and Glasgow Barren County IDEA are working together on also focuses on the assets that are unique to Glasgow which cannot be easily copied by another community.

Glasgow already possesses robust utility infrastructure. We have redundant water plants. Our water supply at Barren River Reservoir is virtually limitless. Our electric system is about to have redundant feeds to the community. We have our own hospital and that hospital serves as the nucleus for a large network of health care professionals. Perhaps most unique, we own our own fiber-rich broadband network which is already connected to a large number of internet-based electric meters and connected to every one of the other assets listed above.

It just so happens that, in 2010, the planets are lining up for the whole world to be interested in learning how to deliver electric power and health care in a more efficient manner, using a robust broadband network. Many, many manufacturers of the technology which will be necessary to deliver electric power via a “smart grid” will be looking for a place to conduct pilot projects and tests of their technology. Similarly, folks who write software and invent new medical devices that need broadband connections to complete the improvements they claim for health care will be looking for a place to test their inventions. In our mind, that puts Glasgow in a perfect position to offer itself up to these companies as a laboratory for them to conduct the research. Looking over the horizon, if we can successfully sell ourselves as a laboratory, perhaps some of the technology tested here will become very successful and the inventors will then need a place to manufacture those devices. If that comes to pass, maybe our old buildings that formerly produced parts for the automotive industry will be reborn as places where new appliances and high tech devices are made. Perhaps this will be the rebirth of our economy. Isn’t it worth trying?

So, that is the vision we are presently pursuing in the hope of breathing new life into our economy. Already we have accepted a couple of small demonstration projects for heat pump water heaters and ductless heat pumps through TVA and EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute). We just completed a proposal to Kentucky Department of Energy Development and Independence for a two year long project to evaluate new energy saving appliances created by General Electric (read more about that here), in partnership with the Gatton Academy of Math and Science at WKU, University of Kentucky, and muNet, Inc. Soon we will be applying for another smart grid demonstration project through TVA. We are even trying to convince the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services to pilot the planned Kentucky Health Information Exchange (more information about this here) network here in Glasgow.

Will any of these proposals be accepted? We don’t know. Will the use of Glasgow as a laboratory for new technology ideas immediately bring in a lot of new jobs? While not likely as an immediate result, we definitely believe this may be the ultimate result. The most important thing about this story is that we have ideas – new ones, that might possibly turn into very big ideas for our little community. These ideas are not the kind that totally depend upon the whims of a small group of board members in a distant city or country. These ideas can be enriched and supported by the people who live here and show their willingness to be a part of these experiments. This kind of economic development is like planting a garden and growing our own food. No one can take this away from us so long as we continue to work and pull together as a strong, united community.

We will keep you posted when something is ripe and ready for the picking!

Solar Cable Outages -- A Rite of Spring

2010-02-25T08:12:00.002-06:00

The delivery of cable television programming bounced off of an orbiting satellite is an amazingly useful and reliable way to get a wide variety of entertainment, but, twice a year, it has some hiccups. Over the next few days those hiccups will affect your television viewing for ten to fifteen minutes per day. Then it will happen again in late summer at the end of September and first of October.

During the equinoxes, as the apparent path of the sun across our sky moves from the southern latitudes toward the northern ones (bringing with it SPRING!!), our satellite dish has trouble picking up the signals from the satellites out in space which are transmitting the cable programming. Anyone who has driven by our offices, and observed the giant dish looking at the southern sky, has seen the technology we use to deliver most of the cable channels you see in your homes. Except for about eighteen days per year, that dish easily receives those signals from a number of satellites parked out about 22,000 miles in the sky.

On those other days, the sun actually moves directly into a line stretching from the sun, to the satellites and then to our dish behind 100 Mallory Drive in Glasgow, Kentucky. For the time that those three elements line up (normally about 20 minutes per day), the satellite dish is blinded by the sun and cannot "see" the satellite. That results in your cable programming getting sparkles in it, then progressively getting worse until it actually falls apart for a few minutes. Then, as the sun moves along and the satellite reappears from the glare, the programming starts returning to normal gradually.

So, over the next few days, anytime between 10:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. you might see this happening. Do not be alarmed. It just means that Spring is arriving in Glasgow!

There's a New Channel (or two) in Town

2010-02-10T22:35:00.003-06:00

Few conversations have taken place in Glasgow recently that did not include some discussion of the weather. In fact, we talked about it so much at the EPB that we decided to add a new channel dedicated to nothing but Glasgow weather! If you check out channel 42 on our cable system, you can see the new channel that we have yet to name. You will notice that it is customized with the EPB logo and it features the latest local conditions from our local weather station. It features local radar views which toggle back and forth from zoomed in to Barren and surrounding counties, to a view of Kentucky and Tennessee. It is really a constant flow of the sort of information that we all were accustomed to seeing on The Weather Channel during their “Local on the 8's” segment, that is before they started interrupting it all of the time with long form programming that few are interested in seeing. We will also be helping to pay for the equipment necessary to create the new channel by selling local advertising on the sides of the main weather window. You will also hear music from the many different channels available to you through our DMX service that comes along with any of our Digital Tier packages. Tonight, as this is written, the audio accompanying the weather on channel 42 is from the digital channel 406 - Lite Classical, and I feel more cultured just sitting here listening to it! So, you can now dominate all conversations about the weather just from the knowledge you will gain by beginning to watch Channel 42 on EPB channel 42. No longer will you be dependent upon any of the many weather persons on the various broadcast channels on our cable service. With EPB Cable and our new 42, you will be able to watch the weather without it being interrupted for a Power Ball drawing!

There is also another new channel up in the High Definition Tier as well. ESPNU-HD is now available on channel 505. And, just to keep all of the ESPN programming together and in nice neat order, we moved ESPN2-HD up to channel 506. Now you can watch those UK and U of L basketball games on ESPNU in high definition!

Your Electric Bill and the Customer Charge

2010-01-25T19:06:00.002-06:00

With the cost of electric power higher than it used to be, combined with the cold weather causing most of us to use a lot more of that expensive power, some folks are scrutinizing their bill a lot more than ever before. That must be the case because we have gotten a lot more questions lately about one item which appears on all electric bills issued by us – the Customer Charge.

On your residential electric bill, this charge is presently $10 per month. If you have a small commercial account the Customer Charge is $15 per month and if you have a bit larger commercial account it is $45. Bigger businesses have correspondingly larger monthly Customer Charges.

Most folks want to know why this charge appears on the bill at all, and hopefully, this blog post will answer that question. The short answer is that the Customer Charge is designed to pay the expense associated with the fixed cost of delivering electric power to a home or business. The energy charge portion of the bill (expressed in kWH and/or kW demand) is designed to pay for the actual energy we purchased for you from TVA.

The fixed costs associated with delivering electric power to you each month include a long list of things that have nothing to do with the actual volume of electric power you purchase each month. Those things include: cost of the meter, service conductors, transformer, and other plant that serves your home or business; the cost of reading the meter, producing, and mailing the bill; the cost of owning the trucks, tools, equipment and paying the personnel necessary to maintain your electric service; the cost of tree trimming and storm damage repairs associated with maintaining service to your home or business; and the cost of tax equivalent payments to local schools and governments.

After considering that list of things that cost money but are not associated with the number of kilowatt-hours you use each month, it becomes pretty clear that the Customer Charge is actually much smaller than it really should be. For many years, by popular demand of the customers, kWH charges have actually been kept a bit higher than they really ought to be because customers just did not like the idea of paying a larger fixed charge, and that has always confused all of us in the electric power business. An appropriate Customer Charge protects the average electric consumer from subsidizing the unusual customer that maintains an electric service at a location that uses a very small amount of energy. If there were no Customer Charge at all and if the EPB collected all of the revenue necessary to maintain the network through kWH charges, then those who just wanted a service maintained for their convenience though little energy is consumed, would get that service virtually for free, paid for by all of the normal customers. It amazes me that anyone would favor such an unfair system.

We are all accustomed to paying our car payments for the right to have a car, whether we use it or not, and paying for our gasoline depending on how many miles we drive. The same philosophy should be customary for electric power. The Customer Charge is equivalent to the car payment and the kWH charge is equivalent to buying gasoline for the car. Hopefully, this will help everyone to understand why there are the two charges on the monthly bills from EPB.

MTV vs. EPB and Other Small Cable Systems - A Truce is Declared

2010-01-15T10:45:00.001-06:00

At the last possible moment, the MTV folks and our representatives, the National Cable Cooperative, reached a tentative agreement which will mean that the MTV suite of channels will not be interrupted today. We are very happy to get this news and we are extremely proud of the support we got from the majority of our customers for our decision to “get tough” and stick with the cooperative as they carried out these negotiations.

This means that the present danger of losing these channels has ended but it does not mean that the battle is totally over. We still need to see what kind of deal the cooperative agreed to and decide locally if we are willing to pay what they agreed to (although it is quite likely that we will, even though we assume the deal will call for us to pay more for these channels). That information should be arriving at our door step within the next week or two.

Again, thanks so much for your willingness to hang in there with us as we went eyeball to eyeball with a giant. This will make our future negotiations with programmers big and small much easier for us to accomplish. You guys rock!

Roll Over or Get Tough - Part 2

2010-01-08T08:49:00.003-06:00

A couple of weeks ago we talked about this issue as it relates to our agreements with some broadcast stations and as it related to the controversy between Fox and Time-Warner Cable. The broadcast station issue will not be an emergency until the end of 2011. The Time-Warner/Fox matter really only affected us as an observer and as a harbinger of things to come for us in the future. However, now we find ourselves directly and immediately affected by a breakdown in negotiations with MTV Networks.

Because of our small size in a market dominated by behemoths, we belong to a cooperative that purchases much of cable programming on behalf of hundreds of small cable systems like ours. That cooperative has done wonderful work in getting us lower prices and attractive terms for our cable programming, but now they find themselves in a "Roll Over or Get Tough" battle of their own. This battle is not looming over the horizon. It is upon us today.

The battle is over the programming we purchase from MTV Networks. On our system, these channels come from MTV Networks:

Comedy Central

MTV

MTV Hits

MTV2

MTV Tr3s

Nick Jr (Noggin)

Nickelodeon Toons

TeenNick (The N)

Nickelodeon

VH1

VH1 Classic

VH1 Soul

Spike TV

TV Land

CMT

CMT Pure Country

This is not an insignificant list and some of these channels might be your very favorites. So, we face the question again. We can stick with the cooperative and hope they can finalize a deal which is acceptable. Presently the negotiations are not going well and MTV is threatening to turn off those channels to our system on January 15 if the cooperative does not capitulate to their demands for increased fees. In the alternative, MTV has offered to sell us the programming directly, at much higher fees than we presently pay, if we break away from the cooperative and sign a direct deal with them by January 12. Of course, they are trying to break the back of the cooperative by convincing the members to move to direct deals like this.

So, we ask our customers once again. Do we roll over or get tough? The clock is ticking.

Roll Over or Get Tough?

2009-12-29T08:57:00.003-06:00

It warms our heart to see two titans of the cable television world slugging it out over an issue that has been affecting us in Glasgow for years. As 2008 was coming to a close we were enraged by the heavy-handed demands of broadcast stations in Bowling Green, Nashville, and Louisville, for payment of huge fees for the right to carry their signals on our cable television system. Now it is Time Warner Cable and News Corporation (the owners of the many Fox stations we all know) who are locked in a dispute over the very same thing.

I have to admit cheering when Time Warner introduced this website to educate and take the pulse of their customers on the question of whether they should get tough and refuse to pay the exorbitant fees demanded by Fox or just roll over and pay them, and, in turn, pass the cost along to the customers. On a far, far smaller scale, we have been there and done that. We too have had a long running battle with Fox over their Fox Sports South service and the UK basketball games they own each year. We too have felt the sting of criticism from our customers who feel that no price is too high where a University of Kentucky basketball game is concerned, while the majority of our customers applaud our steadfast refusal to pay Fox Sports South over $100,000 per year for the rights to these games. So, it is nice to see this matter get some serious nationwide attention when two heavy weight contenders climb into the ring.

This article in today’s New York Times does a fine job of examining the problem from all angles. I hope you will click on the link and take a few minutes to read this article. It would also do us all a lot of good for you to ponder this matter and continue to give us feedback on our own struggle to decide between getting tough or rolling over for the demands of all programming providers, but especially the broadcast stations. Less than two years from now we will be locked in discussions with the likes of WBKO, WTVF, WNKY, WSMV, and WHAS again. We will be facing the luxury of having multiple NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox stations from Bowling Green, Nashville, and Louisville, versus the financial reality that these stations are demanding dramatically escalating payments for programming which was designed to be sent out over the airwaves for free.

The really frustrating part of this is that the entities demanding the outrageous fees always hold some sort of popular programming as a hostage - most of the time it is sports programming of some sort, and we as a society seem all too willing to negotiate, and pay the ransom, demanded by the hostage takers. Perhaps the most telling part of the NYT article linked above is at the end when Senator John Kerry is quoted as calling upon Time Warner and News Corporation to hurry up and reach an agreement because "millions of football fans are depending on it." Are we as a people willing to thus negotiate with hostage takers? You betcha.

Should we roll over or should we get tough and actually drop some of these stations because they are asking for too much money? You now have less than two years to let us know before we face the same matter that the people of New York, Los Angeles and other cities are facing right now. Please let us know how you feel.

Go Ahead - Open It Now!

2009-12-15T15:26:00.004-06:00

We’ve got some new stuff for you, and we just cannot wait any longer. First of all, your internet service has been upgraded! Our standard cable modem download speed of 1.5 Mbps is now 2.5 Mbps. Our second tier speed that was 4 Mbps is now 5 Mbps. Merry Christmas! This is not going to increase your service cost. Double Merry Christmas!

There is one thing you need to do to make your cable modem download the new speed limit. You need to go to your cable modem, determine where its power cord is, and unplug it for thirty seconds. After that brief pause, plug it back in and give it a few minutes to reconfigure itself, then start enjoying your early Christmas present from the EPB. We hope that everyone will take a minute to perform this operation. While we could make a rather drastic move and operate a switch at a substation that would power cycle all cable modems at once, (along with all other power consuming devices in town) well . . . that is a really dramatic action that we would rather not take.

But wait, there’s more! If you subscribe to our HD (High Definition) tier of programming, you have another gift to unwrap. Coming to your HD cable box right now is about 20 new HD channels! To get these new channels, you don’t really have to do anything. Right now the new channels are being downloaded to the I-Guide on your HD box and you will be able to start enjoying all of this new HD programming in time for all of your holiday gatherings. And, like the speedier internet service discussed above, there is no additional charge for these new channels. Further, if you are getting a new HD television for Christmas, there is even more good news! We will waive our regular $30 HD installation charge until the end of the year if you sign up soon while we still have installation slots left.

Merry Christmas Glasgow, from your EPB team!

How About Some Less Expensive Energy for the Holidays?

2009-12-01T14:56:00.003-06:00

The rate you pay for electric power will, once again, go down a little in December. This is another rather bizarre situation wherein the EPB rate is increasing overall just under 3%, but the TVA FCA (Fuel Cost Adjustment) is going down about 5.5% at the same time. That means that our customers will see an average reduction in the rate they pay of about 2.5% for December. But, as we have warned you in the past, don’t get too used to that low rate because it will surely go back up over the next several months. Of course, the amount of your bill will depend, as always, on how much energy you use.

For the EPB’s part, the rate increase is necessary raise the funds necessary to make the payments on the new substation we are building. This new facility will provide Glasgow with a second route for energy to enter the city and will increase our network dependability as we strive to refurbish the old single delivery point substation that has served our community for the last thirty five years. Construction is already taking place on this new substation and it should be in service by the end of 2010.

If you want to examine the newest effective electric power rate schedule in detail, you can get a paper copy at our office or you can view it online at this link.

The TVA FCA has been going down now for the last several months due to the fact that this unusually mild weather, coupled with our economic doldrums, has resulted in far less energy being consumed. Of course, with less energy consumption, there comes a dramatically reduced need to purchase fuel to consume in TVA’s production of electric power. However, their forecast is for this trend to reverse (who doesn’t want to forecast that the economy will improve?) and that the FCA will start increasing the net cost of power for the next six months.

Of course, all of this rate activity will ultimately result in a total change in the way energy is sold throughout the region which will take effect in October 2010. This change will be the new TOU (Time Of Use) rate that we have been talking with you about for many months. But, until then, enjoy the lower power rates for your holiday events during December! For, just like most good things (and bad for that matter), this too shall pass.

UPDATE on UK Men's Basketball Games

2009-11-24T10:49:00.005-06:00

Here is the latest on UK Men's Basketball and the tournament they are playing in this week. UK vs Cleveland St. will be at 3:30 pm today. Depending on whether they win or lose, Wednesday's game will be at either 6:00pm or 8:30pm.

We cannot get either of these games to show on our cable system. Eddie Russell, our Cable Manager, contacted everyone we could think of yesterday, CBS College Sports Programming Manager, UK Media Office, etc. Apparently our state owned university thought it a good idea to sign a contract with a tournament which, in turn, gave the tournament organizers the right to allow the games to be exclusively marketed to Insight Cable, for only a handful of markets in the state. That means that if you pay state taxes and live in Louisville, Lexington, or Bowling Green, your taxes get you a shot at seeing our university play basketball in this tournament. If you live elsewhere, like here in Glasgow, then you pay but don't get to play. Even our state capital Frankfort will not have it, according to our friends at the Frankfort Plant Board.

Obviously, we all think this situation is quite unfair. The folks at our University should not sign a deal to participate in a tournament that is not going to make the video of the games available to everyone in Kentucky, period.

Frozen Pictures and Blue Screens

2009-11-23T10:13:00.005-06:00

Over the last few weeks we have started to experience some problems with the delivery of the broadcast stations from Nashville and Louisville. This trouble manifests itself as a frozen image or blank screen, and it is one that we predicted long ago as the FCC mandated that broadcast stations change from analog to digital. Back in 2006 our newsletter carried full details of this matter and, since our prediction is coming true and some folks are concerned, I am reprinting that 2006 article below:

With apologies to Professor Harold Hill and everyone associated with The Music Man. . . Well, we got trouble my friend, right here in Broadband City. . .I say trouble with a capital “T” and that rhymes with “D” and that stands for digital broadcast signals.

That’s right. Digital broadcast is trouble. It might not be as bad as the game of pool was in River City, but it certainly gets us some calls and occasional criticism from our customers. These calls are because of signal interruptions on cable channels carrying broadcast stations in Louisville and Nashville. We did not cause these problems and solutions are particularly vexing and expensive. While we think we have explained this matter ad nauseum in the past, we keep getting questions about it so we are going to try once again. Here goes.

If you have been watching a program which originates at a broadcast station in Louisville or Nashville, and the picture freezes, pixilates (falls apart into something resembling puzzle pieces), has interruptions to the sound, has episodes where people’s lips and the sound are not in synch, or the picture just goes away and is replaced by a blue screen with the words “no signal”, you suffer from a malady much worse than Restless Leg Syndrome. You are experiencing analog-to-digital-conversion-syndrome (ADCS). However, neither Merck nor Pfizer has a pill, of any color, which will cure ADCS. It is one of the great failures of the American pharmaceutical industry.

To better understand this disease, we must first make sure everyone understands just what “analog” and “digital” mean. Up until about three years ago all transmission of television signals from stations that broadcast to people with an antennae, as well as to cable operators with a very big antenna, was done via analog transmission. Analog simply means real, measurable, or continuously variable. Hmmm, that might not be clear enough. How about this? If you still have a watch that has a bunch of little springs and cogs and gears in it that rotate and whir about resulting
in a big hand and a little hand telling you what time it is, you have an analog watch. It gives you the time by knowing how far to move those hands in a minute. Similarly, analog broadcast signals carried moving pictures by constantly modulating certain frequencies that were sent out over the airwaves to be picked up by an antenna and tuned by a television set. Okay? Analog was a great way to send out television signals. While never perfect, analog signals carried for a long way and that helped places like Glasgow to get news and programming from far away places like Nashville
and Louisville. As weather or other interference occurred in the analog world, the signal would degrade some, our customers might have seen a bit more noise in the picture, but it would still be watchable. As you can see in the graphic, Glasgow was never in the “good” range of analog transmission from those cities, but we made it work pretty well because analog signals are very resilient and tunable over a wide range of power levels. But, as technology and greed marched along together over the last several years, other companies like cell phone providers and other wireless systems began to lobby Congress and the FCC to force the broadcasters to use new digital broadcast technology. In theory this new technology is far superior and uses a lot less of
the broadcast spectrum (that means a lot of the old analog frequencies would be available for more cell phones and other things with buttons, screens and irritating noises that keep you from being able to enjoy any peace and quiet anywhere). Therefore, as is often the case, while you were not watching Congress and the FCC agreed with the lobbyists and decided that all television broadcasters should abandon the old analog technology and replace it with new-fangled digital
transmission technology. I think maybe they all got a free cell phone for making this decision.

Earlier we described analog as being measurable or real, but digital is quite different. Let’s go back to the watches. If your watch is not analog it is digital. With a digital watch there are no moving parts - no wheels, springs, or gears. A digital watch just has a little processor in it running a program. The program counts little electronic pulses and converts that calculation into lighting up some little diodes to display something like “1:27". Digital television transmission is like that as well. It has no “moving parts”. Instead, it sends you a staggering flow of 0's and 1's that our receiver
here interprets, and performs calculations on. Instead of telling a bunch of LED’s to display “1:27", it converts the calculations into near perfect pictures and colors that appear on your television set and allow you to see that those Desperate Housewives have quite the colorful life. Now you know all there is to know about analog and digital transmission. Don’t you feel technical now?

Now let’s look again to the graphic because there is one more thing to know. Digital signals do not carry as far as analog signals. In addition, digital signal does not slowly deteriorate and remain watchable as the signal gets weaker. Since the digital signal is not “real” but only a long series of binary numbers that need to be computed by our receiver, when some of those numbers come up missing because of weak signal, the picture does not compute so it just falls apart and stops. Depending on your television, this results in a frozen picture, a puzzle mess, or a blue screen. The
power levels and the frequencies allotted for digital transmission have one clear result; they were never intended to carry more than about 50 miles! As you can see on the graphic, we are outside of the intended range of digital transmission from both Louisville and Nashville. This is not our fault because we did not pick where Glasgow is located. Further, we did not pick the digital transmission standards. Very “smart” people in Washington D.C. did that.

Okay, now you know about analog and digital and you have a map to show that we are in the digital hinterlands. You also know that none of this is our fault. All that is left for us to discuss is the fact that you expect us to fix it anyway, right? Well we have been working on that.

Like everything else, this matter comes down to money. There are ways to improve upon this situation. We can install an antenna closer to the broadcast stations and bring the signal to Glasgow via fiber. We can also purchase the signals from certain satellite vendors for delivery
to our receiving dish. But most of these solutions spend tons of money for very little additional signal improvement. With this economy, that just seems unwise.

That is how we explained it nearly four years ago. Since then we have done a ton of expensive work improving our antennae and getting some signals delivered via fiber. Also, retransmission consent changes in 2008 changed to menu of stations we are trying to deliver. We made decisions based upon what stations we thought we could deliver and the capacity of our antennae systems to deliver them with reliability. Most of those decisions have been good. The slate of Louisville and Nashville stations we are able to deliver in High Definition is long and the troubles have been very few. BUT, none of this is perfect. We can accept 98% reliability for stations like WHAS and WSMV or we can choose to drop them entirely if they are not 100% perfect all of the time. We would be interested in hearing from our customers if they feel we should react to this dilemma differently.

UPDATE on UK Men's Basketball Games

2009-11-16T08:40:00.001-06:00

We have learned that things are not nearly as dark as we thought they were going to be for some of the UK Men’s basketball games. In a previous blog post we listed about six games that were exclusive to Fox Sports South that we assumed would be unavailable to our customers due to our steadfast refusal to pay Fox’s ransom demands for these games. However, things have improved over the last few days!

Tonight’s game, which features the debut of super freshman John Wall, will be live on EPB channel 15, WMYO, at 6:00 p.m. with a preview starting at 5:30 p.m., and there is more good news! Here is an updated schedule of the next few games and when they will appear on our cable system:

11-19-09 vs. Sam Houston St. 9:00 p.m. EPB Channel 12

11-21-09 vs. Rider 4:00 p.m. EPB Channel 12

11-30-09 vs. Asheville still looks like we might not get this one

12-23-09 vs. Long Beach State 4:00 p.m. EPB Channel 12

When we know more about any of these important games, we will let you know right here on the Red, Blue & Green blog!

If We Work Really Hard, Maybe We Can Stop This

2009-11-11T16:21:00.003-06:00

It is now clear that many folks were waving red flags about the rampant greed and corruption that finally laid waste to our economy over a year ago. Those folks were ignored, but surely we have learned to pay more attention to similar warnings. Surely we are ready to take action against greed before it creates another tsunami which threatens to wash us off our island. If so, I have a red flag to wave.

It has now been a year since we were forced to start paying broadcasters like WBKO for the privilege of putting up an antenna and picking up the signals they send through the air over our homes and businesses (and the last time I checked, that air belongs to us not the broadcast television stations). The people of Glasgow will pay about $150,000 this year to receive broadcast programming which had been free since the beginning of broadcast television. In fact, this year we will pay nearly $40,000 of that to just one broadcast station, WBKO in Bowling Green! We have two more years left on the three year agreements which created these ransom payments.

Every time I sign one of those checks I am enraged, but I see even more ominous clouds on the horizon. Forget about waving a red flag. Our local outdoor warning sirens should be going off to warn us of the likely merger of Comcast Cable and NBC Universal! Comcast is the largest cable system operator in the country serving about 25 million cable customers. That means they are already a financial behemoth and a darling of our friendly “money changers” in the temple of Wall Street. They also already own a significant number of the channels they carry on those cable systems. Those services include: E! Entertainment, Style Network, Versus, The Golf Channel, and G4. While significant, these are not the most popular channels on any cable system. So, if they jacked up the rates on these channels, no one would feel particularly put upon if their cable operator simply dropped them. Such would not be the case if Comcast is allowed to merge with NBC Universal. Then they would control services like: Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, NBC Sports, Oxygen, and USA Networks. Comcast would also own Universal Pictures, which releases several blockbuster movies per year. It would also own stakes in web sites including Hulu and iVillage.

So, at the end of this contract period, since Glasgow EPB is municipally owned and not on the list of companies that will be getting a Christmas card from Comcast, what might it cost us to carry NBC broadcast stations? How much might we have to pay to see the Olympics or anything else on NBC Sports? A few years ago Stephen Colbert did a great “news” piece on AT&T and how it was finally broken up by our government’s anti-trust regulators, only to slowly reassemble itself so that it is bigger and more monopolistic than ever. Click here to see that hilarious video. Comcast is threatening to rival AT&T in its size and economic power. It is amazing to me that so many of us are still railing against “big government regulation” when it is small and weak government oversight that resulted in the economic mess we are in today and continues to promise more of the same if they allow themselves to be run over and out maneuvered by companies like Comcast. Do we need more mergers like this one or do we need less cooperation between giant companies like Comcast and NBC Universal?

I say we need to stop this merger in its tracks.

Another World -- Delayed

2009-10-30T09:52:00.001-05:00

It would be great if everyone would watch Now on PBS tonight. It is on KET1 at 8:30. The video above is nice, but it just has more punch when you actually watch the program on television...especially on EPB cable! (sorry about the shameless plug)

The program does a great job helping everyone see the sort of relationship between energy consumers and energy providers that we have been trying to bring about in Glasgow, both from the EPB's perspective and from Sustainable Glasgow's perspective. For those of you who might have read my recent series of articles entitled Another World - Parts 1 - 3, you got a good feel for how we have been planning the technology to change this relationship. We were counting heavily on being able to roll the technology out to the whole community over the next couple of years through the economic stimulus funds announced earlier this year and administered through the US Department of Energy (DOE). Unfortunately, just this week the winners of those grants were announced and Glasgow was not among the successful applicants.

In fact, of the $3.4 billion made available for "smart grid" projects, no cities in Kentucky were given a dime. Meanwhile, places like Chattanooga and Knoxville, and Memphis got hundreds of millions of dollars for projects. It sort of makes you wonder just what a city like Glasgow, who has moved the infotricity ball steadily down the field for twenty years, would have to do to be considered worthy of some modicum of support from our federal government. Weren't we supposed to be represented by an exceedingly connected and powerful Senator? Hmmm...

So, that means we are back to where we have always been, doing the hard work and science of understanding how to change the way people use electric power all by ourselves. That means that the new world we discussed over the last few weeks, and the one better represented in the video story about Denmark, is going to be a bit slower in coming and a lot more expensive for us to put in place, but we are not about to give up on the idea. Stay tuned for our continued work with Google and other technology partners to bring new technology to the people of Glasgow. We can probably move more quickly and learn more by continuing our guerrilla warfare methods than we could have done if we had gotten all of that money anyway (even though I certainly would have liked to have experienced what life would be like with someone giving us money).

Second Power Delivery Point for Glasgow - On the Way

2009-10-28T15:27:00.001-05:00

After five years of study, planning, pondering, and design, the Glasgow EPB just gave final approval to the plan to build a second power delivery point for the City of Glasgow. For the last thirty five years Glasgow’s electricity, all of it, came through a single substation at Haywood. Like the author, this station is aging and its reliability has become of great concern, since there are multiple devices in the substation that could fail, resulting in a complete loss of power for Glasgow. Obviously, this is something we must avoid.

Still, the decision has been difficult. On the one hand, one might feel that, since the city has been served well by one delivery point for the last several decades, the risk of failure is low and we might well get by a few more decades without making this major investment. If we could become comfortable with this risk, we certainly could save a lot of money. However, aging infrastructure is leading to disasters in other communities. The levees in New Orleans, the Interstate 35 bridge collapse in Minnesota, and other failures where saving money lead to disaster, and ultimately far greater cost, certainly weighed heavily on our minds as we pondered this decision.

On the other hand, refurbishing the Haywood Substation was really not a viable option. Replacing major components of the substation would require that the substation be out of service for an extended period. If this substation were out of service, everyone in Glasgow would be in the dark. So, we are officially beginning the construction of a new power delivery point which will be located off Tompkinsville Road near where it crosses the Cumberland Parkway. TVA has already constructed about seven miles of new 161 kV transmission line to serve the new substation. Soon, a local construction company, Larry Glass Construction, will start the earthwork necessary to build the substation. By the end of 2010, this new asset should be serving our community and the arterial portions of our electric power network in Glasgow will be vastly more robust. That does not mean that car wrecks, storms, and critters will not be able to cause some power outages. It does mean that our whole city will have a redundant source of power should any major component fail in either the old substation or the new one. It means we will not be guilty of putting short term savings over long term attention to the infrastructure necessary to make our homes safe and secure.

Of course, this improved power delivery system is going to cost money; a lot of money. By the time all costs for construction and upgrades to our transmission lines are in, the new delivery point will cost about $7 million. To make the payments on this additional debt, we have already asked for permission from TVA for a retail rate increase to become effective in January 2010. This increase will likely amount to something in the neighborhood of a 3% increase to the monthly power bills for all customers of Glasgow EPB. We will keep you posted on the details of this increase as the numbers firm up over the next few weeks. As we all know, this will be particularly difficult since some large power users have left us over the last several months due to the economic downturn, and others certainly could leave in the future. So, knowing just how much rates will need to increase will require us to have an accurate crystal ball which can predict what city-wide electricity usage is going to be over the next several years. Please let us know if you have one of those.

EPB Cable and UK Men's Basketball

2009-10-06T15:48:00.006-05:00

As the television watching season comes into its prime, it seems like a great time for us to talk a bit about what we know about changes for this fall and, to discuss the all-important University of Kentucky Men’s basketball schedule. Follow along and we will tell you everything we know about these matters.

Earlier in the year we were happy to hear that ESPN story link has purchased the rights to all South Eastern Conference sports for a fifteen year period. Now, while we are still not big fans of ESPN because of the outrageous fees they charge us, we were at least happy that we would be getting all of the UK games included in the fees we were already contractually committed to pay ESPN. As usual, our happiness has been dashed. The very latest attack on our spirit is that ESPN has bitten off more than they can chew and they have resorted to selling several of the “UK vs CupcakeU” games to our old nemesis, Fox Sports South. However, we are happy to report that University of Kentucky's Big Blue Madness will appear on ESPNU (our channel 149) beginning at 8 p.m. on October 16. WBKO will also air the event starting at 6:00 p.m. on their CW station (our channel 12).

As we are still steadfastly convinced that the last thing we need to do to the local economy is to take an additional $100,000 per year out of it to send it to Fox Sports South in return for a few games against very weak opponents, the following games will not be available on the EPB cable system:

11/2/2009 UK vs. Campbellsville

11/6/2009 UK vs. Clarion

11/19/2009 UK vs. Sam Houston State

11/21/2009 UK vs. Rider

11/30/2009 UK vs. UNC Asheville

12/23/2009 UK vs. Long Beach State

I know that many of you will find this disappointing. Well, actually some of you will find it closer to horrific, but “disappointing” is a much nicer word. There might be a few other games that are on BBSN (Big Blue Sports Network) which should be available on WBKO or on WDRB on our system, but even some of them might be blacked out if ESPN chooses to do so (don’t ask me why they would, but they tell us this is possible). Of course, even this information is still changeable depending on how well the UK team does and how popular their games are in the early season. We will certainly do our best to keep you posted on this as we get the information ourselves.

There is also a fairly significant change to our KET channels which just occurred on October 1. KET is rearranging things and we are following along with them. For the last several years KET has operated KET, KET2, KET3 HD, and KET4. Now they are moving all of their HD programming to regular KET. They are keeping KET2 as it is and they are replacing KET 4 with KET KY.

On our system that means that the regular KET programming will continue to be on channel 11, but the high definition version of that programming will be on channel 511. KET2 programming will remain on our channel 23 and also on digital channel 192. The new KET KY programming will only be on our digital channel 193. We are not sure just what programming will appear on KET KY, but their intention is to fill it mainly with documentaries by and about people and places in Kentucky.

Feel free to comment and ask questions by using the link below labeled “comment.”

Lunch and Learn at Mary Wood Weldon Public Library

2009-09-30T16:21:00.001-05:00

Okay, we have just scheduled the first EPB "Lunch and Learn" session at the new Mary Wood Weldon Public Library. The talk will be about EPB services, the coming new electric rates, and social networking on the internet (and anything else that the attendees want to hear about). It will be from noon until 1:00 p.m. on October 19. Email Shelia Hogue at shogue@glasgow-ky.com to request a reservation for the first of what we hope will become monthly Lunch and Learn sessions about Glasgow EPB services. You will enjoy a great lunch from a locally owned restaurant and you might learn some cool new ways to get the most out of the services you already buy from Glasgow EPB!

A Great Man -- Jeff Foster

2009-09-24T13:33:00.003-05:00

Often, all too often it seems, we find ourselves suspending our discussion of EPB issues to talk about the loss of a member of our community. This is another one of those occasions as we ponder the highly untimely passing of one Jeffrey T. "Bubba" Foster. In this case, the eulogy is authored by someone who has earned the right to say a few words about Jeff, his former neighbor and student, Kimberly Carrico. Her excellent article is reprinted below with her permission.

A Great Man

The world lost a great man today. He was not rich, unless you count
the lives he touched. He was not famous, although almost everyone in Glasgow
knew his name. He was not a powerful man, but he influenced more lives
than most people could ever hope to do.

Mr. Foster (for that is how I will always think of him) came into my
life when I was 7 years old. I was in 3rd grade he was my new Principal. Now,
the man who held that position before him was a mythic person. Like
Sauron in The Lord of the Rings he was a presence often felt, but rarely
seen. I'm not sure that, had I been forced to, I could have picked him
out of a lineup and I'm almost positive that he had no idea who I was.

Mr. Foster, on the other hand, greeted me by name (first, middle, and
last) out in front of the school that first morning and every morning
after. Rain or shine he was there to open the car door and start my
morning with a hearty "Good Morning Kimberly Marie Carrico, my neighbor!"
I had lived down the street from him almost my entire life, but until
that first morning I had never spoken to him and the fact that this very
important adult knew my name (my name!) made me feel important too.

By the time I left his school I had read almost every book in the
school library, I could multiply (sort of anyway) and divide, I knew the basics
of US and World History, and my life long love affair of science had
begun. I had learned a great deal about a lot of things, but the most
important lessons I learned didn't come from a book. He taught me about
respect by showing respect to everyone. He taught me about responsibility
by always taking responsibility for his actions. He even taught me to
work hard by constantly being the hardest working person I knew (and the
best whistler too).

But the most important thing I learned from him in my 3 years under
his care was that, despite my young age, I was important. He was the first
adult that spoke to me like I was his equal. He was the first adult to
treat me like my opinions were just as valid as his. He was the first
adult to make me feel like a person.

Over the years he was always there with a smile and a hand when I
arrived at school. He never failed to buy a box of Girl Scout Cookies when I (or
any other girl) came knocking. Every Saturday morning I knew to look for
him washing his Corvette in his driveway and whistling away. And no
matter when or where I saw him, he always spoke to me and called me by
name. Always.

My favorite Mr. Foster story is from the summer after my Freshman
year in college. A few of my new friends from school had come down for the
weekend and I was taking them over to Mammoth Cave. I knew, due to the
last minute nature of our trip and the fact that it was high summer,
there was no way we were going to get tickets for a cave tour, but I
figured we could at least walk down and look at the entrance to the cave.
But first, we went into the Visitor's Center to grab a couple of maps.
Who did I find behind behind the information desk but Mr. Foster.

He, of course, greeted me by name, asked after my family, and then
proceeded to question me about my first year at school. When he found out
who my friends were, he insisted that they see the cave. After I
explained that we didn't have any tickets and all the tours for the day
were sold out, he leaned over the counter and smiled. That was no problem
he assured me, he was giving a tour in a few hours and if we met him
outside then, he would take care of us.

And take care of us he did. We met him outside at the appointed time
and he folded us into his tour group. We walked with the group down to the
entrance to the cave and stood in line at the gate as the other guide
took up tickets. When our turn came, Mr. Foster simply smiled at the
guide (who was probably not much older than we were), patter his chest
pocket, and said "I have these ladies' tickets right here." The other
guide nodded his head and we walked in.

I have been to the Cave enough times to recite every tour along with
the guide, but I had never been on a tour like that one. He picked on me, of
course, because that's what he did, but I didn't mind. And my friends
left the cave that day as much in love with it as he was. Once again he
had made me feel special.

That was his gift. He made everyone he met feel special. Important.
Loved. He was one of those rare people who seemed to have an infinite
ability to love. And to know him was to be loved by him. Every child who
passed through the door to his school (and their siblings and parents)
became important to him. He learned their names. He learned their likes
and dislikes. He took the time to get to know them. And by doing so, he
made each and every one of them feel special.

Yes, the world lost a great man today. He wasn't rich or famous, but
the wealth he left behind him is priceless. Because he lived, an entire
generation of children learned to see themselves as important. Because he
lived, the world is a better place. And that is worth more than all the
money in world.

Written by: Kimberly Carrico

October 1, Rates Go Up, Yet Bills Go Down

2009-09-02T15:32:00.001-05:00

On October 1, the base rate you pay for electric power from Glasgow EPB will go up by about 8.3% but your net rate will go down by 2.2%. Is that confusing enough? I’m telling you. There is just no way to make this stuff up!

Here is the underlying reasoning for any of you willing to plow through it. First, TVA’s financial goose is pretty well cooked. Due to the economy, sales of electric power have taken a nose dive. TVA will sell about 8% less electricity this year than they did the year before. In the world of planning for electric power generation, this sort of result is not even considered, but, since it happened anyway, the financial impact on TVA is earth shaking. Additionally, TVA is facing the one billion-dollar cost (estimated) of cleaning the coal ash spill at Kingston and the two and one half billion dollar projected cost of expedited clean up of the coal plants in east Tennessee which have been found to be polluting the air over North Carolina. Any way you slice it, these matters add up to real money.

So, TVA is turning to additional cost cutting measures, borrowing additional money, and to increasing the rates they charge for electricity sold to distributors like Glasgow EPB. On October 1 our wholesale rates from TVA will increase by about 8.5%. However, the rates we pay, and the rates we pass along to you, are made up of several components. Two of the components are the base rates and the FCA (Fuel Cost Adjustment). We just explained the increase to the base rates, but there is also a coming decrease to the FCA. That is how you are going to wind up with a net decrease on October 1.

The FCA is designed to allow wholesale and retail electric rates to vary depending on what TVA has to pay for fuels which often sell for prices that vary greatly from month to month. Over the last several months the FCA amount charged by TVA has actually dramatically over collected for fuel costs compared to the actual recent trends, which, not surprisingly given the pitiful state of the economy, have gone down. So, TVA is drastically reducing the FCA amount in order to refund that over collection to the customers. While the base rate is going up by 8%, the FCA is going down an amount which results in an 11% reduction to our power costs. Adding these two together creates the roughly 2.2% reduction to your power bills, which will take effect on October 1.

We would be less than fully open if we did not advise you to refrain from celebrating this short term rate reduction too much. The thing to remember here is that the base rate is being increased dramatically. Base rate increases very seldom go away. Meanwhile, the FCA is about to change from being adjusted quarterly to being adjusted monthly. So, it is highly likely that the FCA adjustments over the next several months will erase the warm memory of the October 1 net reduction rather quicky. Like so many wonderful things about October: apples, colorful leaves, and Halloween candy, the rate reduction will come and go quickly. Try to enjoy it while it lasts!

Another World - Part 3 of 3

2009-08-10T16:26:00.003-05:00

As we move toward another world with respect to electric power, we certainly want to take advantage of the things we have learned over the last few years as we prepared for this new adventure. During our years of experience at providing electric power, then cable television, then internet service, and finally telephone service, we figured out several things about our customers here in Glasgow. For example, we know that our customers like it best when we take care of their technology decisions, the training for using new technology, the implementation of new technology, and you also like it when we provide ongoing support for any troubles in using our various products and services. We know that very few of our customers actually understand what a kilowatt-hour is, and further, we understand that you really don’t want to know what one is.

All of these lessons learned lead us to believe that very few of our customers will be interested in us just simply implementing a TOU (time of use) electric rate schedule and then leaving it up to them to install programmable thermostats and other switches and controls that could be used to save money on a TOU rate. This experience is what gives us a head start on the other utilities, and equipment vendors, who are trying to roll out programmable devices and homeowner electric meter information sites in the hope that customers will use these devices to lower the peak demand on electric systems. They still assume it will work, we are cynical about that because of our experience with customers and the many new technologies we have implemented for them over the years.

We believe infotricity can become a reality and that the advent of infotricity will reduce the peak demand for electric power and allow fewer carbon dioxide belching generators to satisfy our need for energy. But we also are convinced that the utility will need to reach far into the home and provide much of the control of HVAC systems and major appliances for the benefits of infotricity to become a reality. That rattles some folks as they see this as an intrusion into energy use decisions that have always been their right. We certainly do not expect to reach in and control anything in your home without your permission. We believe there will always be the option to refuse to cooperate on these new load management controls, but it is also very likely that such refusal will result in much higher electric rates for those that wish to remain ruggedly independent. As stated previously in this series, the days of artificially low electric rates made possible by some users subsidizing the habits of less efficient users is coming to a screeching halt. It really does not require a crystal ball to predict that outcome.

So, coming around the bend are our plans to convince you to allow us, and/or our local contractors, to install a programmable thermostat for your electric heat pumps and air conditioners, and we will be trying to negotiate a deal with you that will allow us to slightly increase and decrease the temperature in your home in return for a credit on your bill. We will be trying to convince you to allow us to control when your electric water heater does its work. We may also be trying to convince you to allow our local vendors to install new refrigerators, dish washers, clothes dryers, etc., that will also respond to our control signals such that electric power demand can be shaped more efficiently. All of these things are coming, and the technology that allows all of this to happen will be possible because of the broadband network that we started building back in 1988. While all of these new technologies are complicated and amazing marvels of modern science, we know that the really tough part of this process will be getting the word out.

As a reader of this blog, you represent one of the roughly one thousand folks who read this information each month. Since there are at least seven thousand homes and businesses in Glasgow that we need communicate with about these matters, we need to find a better way to communicate with the rest of our customers who do not read this blog. We also have access to cable advertising, which we will also use to inform folks about this new world and the things we need to do to help them live happily in it, but we know from experience that many folks will swear they never heard about it on television either. We will use radio advertising, electronic signs around town, and direct messages contained in the monthly billing. Still, we know that many will not be reached this way either. We might try sky writing as it seemed to work for the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, but I am still skeptical of it working here in Glasgow. If you have ideas on how we can do a better job of getting this information out, please let me know.

So, as we have said, another world is coming. It might arrive as soon as November of this year. So what can you be doing right now to prepare for it? Well, this whole new world is going to revolve around the use of electric power. If you have a natural gas water heater and gas heating, you should consider moving toward electric powered appliances if you want the opportunity to free yourself from the massive cost swings associated with natural gas. If your water heater fails within the next couple of months, consider a high efficiency electric water heater as it will work with infotricity. If you are considering the installation of a programmable thermostat, well, perhaps you should wait a few months on that because we might be doing that for you. Most of all, the best way to prepare for this new world is to make yourself available to listen to the things that are going to be available to you in the new world, and help us get your neighbor’s attention as well. We truly want to help every single resident of Glasgow understand what the new world is going to be like and we want everyone to understand what wonderful opportunities are coming our way.

Another World - Part 2 of 3

2009-08-07T11:31:00.002-05:00

For a long time you have heard me talk about infotricity and time-of-use electric rates. These are really just tools which are evolving as useful ways to get us to the promised land of real cost-based electric rates. The newest buzz word relative to the implementation of new technology that will lead to widespread adoption of time-of-use electric rates is “smart grid” and we are applying for the funding to implement more of that technology in Glasgow.

Smart Grid and Stimulus Money are two terms that surely no one has been able to escape over the last several months. Those of you who are familiar with the activities of the EPB over the last twenty plus years will know that our broadband project was born with the objective of changing everything about how electric power is metered, sold, controlled, and purchased. While we have been calling that concept “infotricity” over the last couple of decades, the new catch phrase applied to the idea of using broadband to change the way electric power operates is “smart grid.” It really is not a new idea at all.

A year ago TVA approached us with the idea of using Glasgow as a test site for our long-held ideas about using broadband to control loads like air conditioners and water heaters. We gladly accepted their offer to purchase the devices that need to be tested for performance and reliability. However, before that project could ever get moving, along came this economic mess and the passage of the legislation that earmarked tons of federal monies for infrastructure projects, including smart grid projects. Both TVA and TVPPA (the trade association of the TVA power distributors) became totally consumed with the prospect of getting $400 million worth of this money by creating a regional consortium of TVA distributors willing to commit to installing smart grid technology and demonstrating how the technology might be used to mitigate the need for additional generation facilities. As you might expect, Glasgow is right in the middle of this whole discussion.

While we agreed to work with TVA and TVPPA and EPRI and Oak Ridge National Laboratories on this consortium, we also monitored the application process to see if we also wanted to apply for some of the funding separately from the consortium, assuming that we could qualify for some of the monies directed toward smaller projects and smaller municipalities. The EPB team did a great job getting up to speed on the rules of the game (which are more complicated and voluminous than anyone dreamed possible) and we developed a game plan for our possible projects along with the consortium plan.

The prospect for us attracting stimulus funds for our smart grid ideas seems to be a pretty good possibility. However, after the team analyzed the rules, it became clear that we could not hedge our bets by applying with the consortium and then again on our own. So, we are putting all of our eggs and effort into the TVPPA-EPRI-TVA-ORNL basket. We have submitted our preliminary request for funding that would allow us to install the muNet meters at each of our 7,400 homes and businesses. We asked for money that we can use to pay local contractors to install IP-based water heater switches and thermostats in every home and business in Glasgow with electric water heating or HVAC. We asked for money to install IP-based switches and sensors all over our electric network to allow for fault location and automatic isolation and redirection of power flow. In summary, we asked for everything we could think of and then some more. The total estimated cost for the Glasgow portion of the TVPPA application comes to over $14 million. Will this actually happen? We don’t know. If it does happen how much might Glasgow EPB be expected to furnish? That is also unclear, but it might be as much as 30% of the cost! Are we willing to risk spending $4 million to get $14 million worth of technology for the people of Glasgow? That would be a simple question if the $4 million were available and if the ultimate TVA rate design were known. If those variables were filled in we could do a simple present worth analysis of the future savings made possible by the technology. However, that is not the case, and it will not be the case for any of the cities contemplating this matter.

So, we have applied for the funding and we are waiting to hear what the Department of Energy thinks about our ideas. If they approve, and if TVA somehow offers us a wholesale rate which makes the $4 million investment a wise one, we will start a new project in Glasgow that is the biggest thing we have done yet. It will be bigger than our decision to install a broadband network back in 1988. It will involve the installation of seven thousand new electric meters which will be able to communicate through the internet. It will involve us convincing you to allow local contractors to install internet compatible thermostats and water heater switches. It may involve the opportunity for us to partner with local vendors to offer new internet compatible appliances like water heaters and refrigerators. It may involve us working with local HVAC vendors to offer advanced HVAC systems that make ice during off peak hours and then use that ice to cool homes and businesses during the peak hours.

We will talk about all of this, and more, in Part 3 of this series.

Another World - Part 1 of 3

2009-08-05T11:30:00.001-05:00

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. - Arundhati Roy

That quote is far more than a couple of elegant sentences – it beautifully expresses an undeniable truth; the economic and changing climate situations we find ourselves in are not temporary. Rather, they represent seismic shifts in the way we are going to live out the rest of our lives. Another world is coming, and Glasgow can be among the first to embrace it, or, we can attempt to make the past last a few more years and miss the opportunity. I sure hope we will choose the former.

While tidal changes in the way we live are about to inundate us, the particular subject of this series of posts is electric power and the way it is produced, marketed, priced, and consumed. For way too long, we have sold electric power as if there is an infinite supply available (there is not) and we have priced it as though it costs the same to make it throughout the day (it does not). These confusing signals have been sent to you by your friendly local and regional electric power utilities, and we should be ashamed of ourselves.

After thirty five years in this business there is one thing I know – almost no one really understands what a kilowatt hour (kWh) is, nor do they know what one costs. Obviously, this is a real problem when it comes to the discussion about changing the way folks purchase and use them! A kWh is a volume of energy equivalent to using 1000 watts for one hour. Think of a kWh as a measure of volume much like a gallon of gasoline. In Glasgow, a homeowner presently pays a bit over eight cents for each kWh consumed, no matter what time of day it is consumed, and therein lies the major problem.

On an average summer day in Glasgow (and just about any of the ten thousand cities across our country), relatively little electric power is consumed for sixteen hours per day. However, between noon and 8:00 p.m., nearly everyone is using a large amount of power. We call those hours “peak” energy hours, and that is when all manner of expensive and carbon dioxide producing resources are called upon to meet the peak demand. KWh used during those hours should not be priced the same as the other sixteen hours, but that is exactly what we have been doing for many decades.

When gasoline demand goes up, we expect the price at the pump to rise. When a popular event lands in a particular city, we expect the price of motel rooms to jump. We are not surprised that it is more expensive to fly to Hawaii than it is to fly to Atlanta. Front row seats at a basketball game are more expensive than seats in the nosebleed section. So why have we not priced electric power the same way? Well, one reason is that it is more complicated to meter and bill, and most electric utilities have had a long held affinity for doing things simply. Another reason is that you, the customer, also have a warm feeling for simplicity and have given us signals for years that you would rather just pay a simple “all you can eat” rate instead of one which is different depending on the time of day, and we have obliged. As a result, those that use energy wisely and try to avoid on-peak usage are paying higher rates to subsidize the habits of others who make major contributions to the peak demand in the afternoons.

Over the last several decades our power supplier, TVA, has also committed a lot of sins by designing a wholesale electric rate that does not differentiate between efficient use and inefficient use. At the same time, our species has continued to develop residential areas farther and farther from the centers of towns. We have called this growth and we have been quite certain that all growth is good. As a result, we have converted productive farmland into inefficient suburbs and the utilities have encouraged that by charging the same rate per kWh for energy delivered out into the boondocks as they charge for the high density areas in towns. This is more subsidy where the homes packed in at fifty per mile of power line pay more so folks can enjoy cheap power out where there are three homes per mile of line. We created this mess through inattention to the issues and a conviction that all growth is good and that everyone should help finance that growth. Man, have we been stupid or what?

Our past sins are now being illuminated in a variety of ways. All-you-can-eat pricing for electric power resulted in towering peak demands that have required the construction of ever more peak power generation plants. More power plants resulted in increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (and mercury and other poisons) being pumped into our air and water (Wendell Berry, noted Kentucky author and poet, calls this “pissing in our own cistern”). Those pollutants have contributed greatly to changing our climate, which, in turn, is requiring even more generation plants to be built to keep us “comfortably numb” in an increasingly hostile climate. The present economic collapse is the icing on this cake of woe. Suddenly those who are paying more for energy to provide lower cost power for those who use energy inefficiently are demanding an end to that practice.

All of these planets are lining up to create a new world where electric power, like so many other commodities, is priced at the actual cost of production, including all of the environmental damage costs, fuel costs, delivery costs, and maintenance costs (another subsidy comes when folks with no trees on their property pay the massive costs involved with trimming and removing trees around power lines in the yards of their neighbors). A new world is coming and it is not coming quietly. Stay tuned to this blog for parts two and three of this series.

GE Appliances to use Infotricity

2009-07-17T08:15:00.002-05:00

Tired of me always talking about infotricity and the coming of the "smart grid?" How about a break from my explanations in the form of the same kind of information from GE? This link takes you to a very good article about the new appliances GE is developing to be manufactured just up the road from us in Louisville. If we play our cards right, perhaps we could entice them to do a major demonstration of this technology right here in Glasgow. As you know, we are certainly ready for it! Better still, if we can show how well these appliances would work with our infotricity infrastructure, maybe we could even convince them to manufacture some of the parts for the new appliances here. It could work.

Just Say No

2009-07-06T12:50:00.013-05:00

Three thousand miles away from the place where the Michael Jackson memorial is taking place, the United States Senate is about to take up a matter which is getting no attention compared to the death of the aforementioned pop icon – that of deciding if the United States is ready to get serious about our climate and our energy supply. Yes, unimaginable as that sounds, the future of our ability to live on this planet is taking a back seat to news about the life and death of one guy who could sing and dance quite well.

If you have heard anything about the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, you may know it as the “cap and trade” bill which was narrowly passed a couple of weeks ago by the U.S. House of Representatives. The “cap and trade” description comes from the original intent of the bill, which sought to place a cap on the amount of carbon dioxide being dumped into our air by various sources (mainly electric power generation plants fueled by coal or natural gas), and allow facilities which do a good job of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide they emit to trade, or sell, their good deeds to others who would rather just purchase the clean air credits from others instead of investing money and time into doing good deeds themselves. Amazingly, in a world being rocked by the unfettered trading of mysterious financial instruments, the Obama administration thinks it makes sense to introduce another set of vague and confusing instruments which can be traded and exploited by the unscrupulous corporations that brought us our present economy. Really, you can’t make this stuff up.

A far superior approach would be to simply say no to any additional fossil fueled generation. Congress could simply institute the “cap” portion of the bill. They could say that the amount of greenhouse gases being injected in the atmosphere can never go above the amount that will be released in 2009, period. That is what is actually needed, combined with requirements to reduce the emissions over time, because only a bold move like this will shake the electric power industry into adopting technology which will allow us all to totally change the way we purchase power. Further, if our congress cannot bring themselves to make such a timely and wise decision, much of the same good could be done if the public service commissions in each state would simply take the position that no new fossil fuel fired electric generation plants will be licensed. Another great option would be for TVA, which was designed to the be leader of public power thinking in the United States, to include the pledge to build no new fossil fuel generation, nor purchase power from fossil fuel generators, in the Integrated Resource Plan it is developing right now. Sadly, none of these brave ideas seem likely to happen. Kentucky’s Senators McConnell and Bunning will likely lead the fight to defeat this bill in the Senate, even though doing so will only create more problems for our children and grandchildren. State public service commissions seem powerless to suggest anything not favored by the utilities that they supposedly regulate, and the distributors of TVA power (except this one and perhaps a very few others), lead by their trade association TVPPA, are actively trying to defeat the bill and the idea of limiting the growth of fossil fuel generation -- in fact, they are angling to install their own natural gas fired generation!

The opposition to the bill, and these ideas, comes from those who always seem to want to protect the status quo. The folks who mine and sell coal want things to stay just the same as they are, as do most folks who are making plenty of money with the present situation. They are trying to win you over to their way of thinking by scaring you with predictions of tripled or quadrupled electric bills. As usual, the rich are trying to stay rich by scaring the rest of us with misinformation and ghost stories. If you are interested in just how things really are in the areas where coal is mined, take a look at this article published recently by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The opponents of this bill say that we cannot afford the increased cost of electric power. They are fully prepared to continue damaging the environment in pursuit of “cheap” electricity. The truth is that the real cost of electricity, the way we produce it today, is much higher than what you think it is when you get your bill each month because the damage we are doing to our air and water and climate must be added to what your bill depicts.

Examples of this additional cost are everywhere. One that is really easy to see is the upcoming cost we will be paying for TVA’s recent coal ash spill at the Kingston Plant near Knoxville, TN. The burning of coal and the scrubbing of the emissions from coal fired plants produces unbelievable volumes of residues, which are possibly toxic, from the boilers and smokestacks. That residue is presently stored in man-made lakes, largely unlined, where the ash builds up, leaches into the ground water, or possibly, as in Kingston’s case, breaks through the boundary of the storage facilities and inundates the entire region and nearby rivers. This is not some distant problem that locals need not worry about. These facilities are all around us. Last week we even visited a vast coal ash lake at Paradise Fossil Plant just over an hour from here in Muhlenburg County. It looked like a vast inland sea of muck which was separated from the Green River by about a mile. The future cost of continuing to pursue cheap electricity through the burning of coal is being stored up in these vast lakes, and those costs will be released sooner or later. Cheap electric power from coal and natural gas is an illusion, much like cheap food using commodity subsidized corn is also an illusion. Cheap food loaded with corn derived chemicals like high fructose corn syrup is not cheap either because the additional costs of that food will be realized at the physicians offices, the hospitals, and the pharmacies. The cost of fossil fuel derived electric power is just as high. It is time for us to awaken from our slumber and end this damage that we have been vesting upon our children for many decades. It is time we awaken Senator Bunning and McConnell as well. The Senate should pass this bill as did the House of Representatives.

Just what would happen if we capped electric power generated by fossil fuels at 2009 levels? It is very likely that something wonderful would happen. If all generation utilities were told they were running their last fossil fuel plants and that those plants would be forced to close by a date certain there would be a renaissance in thinking about how to generate electricity. That renaissance would most likely result in the adoption of Electric Power Version 2.0 as discussed at this link recently on this very blog. Existing power plant capacity which is wasted each day would suddenly be mined and utilized. Broadband plant and fiber optic cables, necessary to carry the information component of infotricity, would be built to the farthest reaches of existing electric power networks. Millions of new thermostats, water heaters, and appliances capable of utilizing infotricity would be built and installed, employing hundreds of thousands of workers to produce and install the plant and the devices. Millions of existing buildings would be retrofitted with energy saving and infotricity utilizing capacity, employing additional workers still.

At the same time, investment in antiquated fossil fuel generation would cease and that amount of money would instead be spent on the construction of clean, renewable energy facilities. Emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would begin to fall. The destruction of mountains and streams in Kentucky and West Virginia, in the pursuit of cheap coal would cease, and we would be positioning ourselves to give the generations to come the same sort of world that we inherited from our parents and grandparents. Would that be so bad? Now, let’s sit back and watch our Senators decide whether to chase the ghost of a by gone era or to cast their lot for a new world full of promise for us all. Hopefully we will be able to get new about this vote squeezed in some where between Michael's memorial and Dancing With the Stars.

A Toast to Bonnie Goodman

2009-06-15T16:04:00.002-05:00

Every person in our community, who experiences the force of love, felt a quake in that force on Sunday as Bonnie Goodman left us. Bonnie and Jack Goodman were married for 67 years and had a bond so strong that no one knows what might happen to our world now that one of them is gone. If the planets suddenly stop orbiting as they always have, no one should be surprised.

My personal knowledge of Bonnie and Jack goes back well over 40 years. Growing up in the First Christian Church and knowing them both as Sunday School teachers and all around examples of how folks could actually live out the teachings of the sermon on the mount, I came to think of Bonnie and Jack as the text book definition of a perfect marriage and infinite love . . . and I was right about that.

After my formal education and my return to Glasgow, I got to experience Jack as a member of the Board of Directors of the EPB and that opened the door to a whole new understanding of the Bonnie and Jack binary star system. Each and every interaction with them left me ashamed of the vast divide between my ability to win friends and influence people when compared to them. They created their own gravity and exported kindness as a perpetual motion machine.

Just a few years ago we planned a train trip which included a stop in Glacier National Park. While I had no intention of becoming a tour guide, Bonnie and Jack heard about the trip and made their own plans to ride along. That was fine with me. We had reservations to stay for a couple of nights at Glacier Park Lodge, a famously large and rustic old lodge built of massive Douglas Fir trunks which tower over forty feet high. The lobby is huge and bustling with travelers from all over the world who have come to see the pristine Montana wilderness and the last of North America’s glaciers. After we unloaded our bags and got comfortable in the lobby, Bonnie exclaimed, “The only way to make this better would be to add a little music,” whereupon she walked up to a massive grand piano, sat down, and commenced to play. Everyone in the lobby stopped what they were doing and tuned in to the vibe being created by Bonnie. Folks from different states, countries, and continents were suddenly entranced by the combined beauty of the mountains, the lodge, and the love pouring out of Bonnie’s fingers through the piano keys. After a few songs, Bonnie excused herself from the keyboard and started dancing with Jack to reverberations of the music she had created moments before. Strangers wept.

The next day we were touring the park in the famous old buses. The mountains, glaciers, streams, waterfalls, and the sky combine at Glacier National Park in a way that makes the spirit soar as in no other place on earth. Toward the end of the day the stars began to come out to add even more glory to the sights we were beholding. But, as the trip wound down and the guides asked the crowd for questions, a young couple in behind me simply asked the guide “How soon will we be back at the lodge?” “We want to be there when that lady from Kentucky starts playing the piano!” I looked out at the visual pallette of the sky and the mountains and smiled in complete understanding of how being around Bonnie trumped seeing the last of North America’s glaciers under a billion stars. After all, there are lots of mountains and stars, but only one Bonnie and Jack.

Bonnie’s passing creates a void that will be felt far beyond the confines of our small community, just as the love they generated created a wake that trailed her and Jack always. Let’s hope those waves never dissipate.

Trees . . . the Final Frontier

2009-05-14T20:44:00.004-05:00

Yes fair readers, it is time for another tree talk and, in an attempt to make it interesting and new, let’s talk about the “prime directive” of the fictional crew of the Enterprise (hey, the new Star Trek Movie is out). You will recall that the fictional crew was sent out on a mission to locate and document new worlds and civilizations, but their “prime directive” (their core orders from central command) forbade them from influencing the development of life on those worlds by telling them about things like outer space, intergalactic travel, Viagra, or iPods. You can read more about that by clicking here. Like the crew of the Enterprise, the crew of the EPB also has a prime directive, and ours is neither fictional nor romantic. Our prime directive is to provide essential services, like electric power and broadband, to Glasgow and make them as reliable as possible and as inexpensive as possible. Our prime directive, and trees located near our lines, are on a collision course, and the trees are going to be transformed as a result.

Anyone who knows the EPB team knows that we really hate to do tree trimming. Many of us, like me, are actually nearly militant environmentalists (that’s me riding my bicycle around town to reduce my carbon footprint) and wish there were more trees to capture more CO2 out of the atmosphere and give off more O2. But, nature’s laws were enacted long before any of us were born, and those laws dictate that trees conduct electricity and if they touch a power line, that power line is going to stop delivering power to our customer’s homes and that violates our prime directive mentioned above. So, trim we must.

This year our trimming methods are changing. For decades we have paid a steadily increasing amount of money to contractors to accomplish our line clearing work. Over that time we noticed that our annual cost for line clearing was rapidly increasing, yet our numbers of power outages caused by trees were not declining at all. Something was wrong with this picture, and we think we have figured it out. You see, tree trimming contractors make money by trimming trees. While utilizing modern directional trimming practices (more about that by clicking here) can yield reduced tree trimming costs, over time, and increased electric system reliability, tree trimming contractors really resist trimming this way because it reduces the likelihood of that tree needing to be trimmed again. Rather, they like to make dozens of cuts that all result in many new branch shoots emerging so that next time the tree needs to be trimmed even more. On and on it goes with the need for line clearing steadily increasing along with the cost and happiness of the tree trimming contractor. We plan on breaking that cycle.

Trimming trees directionally is best for the tree and the EPB and the customers. Since we have had little success forcing our contractors to trim this way, we have a new idea . . . we are going to have our own team do this year’s trimming. One thing is certain, our folks do not profit from trimming trees (in fact they hate it!), so it would seem to follow that they will use aggressive directional trimming methods to clear our lines such that they will remain clear for many years. That will save us money and also meet the second part of our prime directive – keeping our services inexpensive.

As this year’s work unfolds we will be doing more than ever to keep you informed of where we are and when we will be in your yard. We will do this by posting information on the crawl at the bottom of The Weather Channel on our cable system. We will also post this information on our www.glasgow-ky.com web page. Finally, we will be sending out regular updates on our activities on Twitter which is discussed in great detail elsewhere on this blog. There should be no one who is not informed about our plans and tree trimming activity so long as they are willing to read from one of these three media sources. We could mind-meld with our customers but we have no Vulcans on the team!

So, we are starting very soon in Norris Court and along South Green Street. If you live in that area, we will be there soon. Other neighborhoods in that part of town will follow throughout the summer and fall. The trees will not be prettier as a result of our visit, but your electric power and broadband services will be more reliable and the cost of delivering them will be reduced. The prime objective of the EPB will be met!

Bounty of the Barrens Market -- More than a Market

2009-05-11T11:50:00.004-05:00

Please forgive me while we talk for a minute about something that is not directly related to the EPB – Sustainable Glasgow and the upcoming Bounty of the Barrens Market currently being planned by Sustainable Glasgow. One of our missions at the EPB has always been to act as a catalyst for economic development and the creation of a steadily improving lifestyle and standard of living in our community. We feel, with all our heart, that the mission of Sustainable Glasgow is well in line with our mission and we really hope you will prove our efforts worthwhile by supporting the market when it opens later this month on Saturday, May 30. This is an exciting time for all the volunteers and vendors involved. One thing is certain: we are not going to be short on area farmers who want to sell food to area eaters!

We are amazed that the market concept we introduced in January has already attracted more than twenty-five vendors who plan to spend their Saturday mornings in the parking lot behind BB&T Bank (which has ever so graciously provided a place for the community to come together) throughout the summer. They will bring the fresh produce that they have lovingly and laboriously planned, planted, tended, and harvested for us.

Now our focus turns toward convincing you, the local eater, to vote for the success of these local farmers by spending your food dollars with them rather than one of the big-box food retailers (you know who). Buckets of money leave our community through these corporate portals.

A visit to the Bounty of the Barrens Market will be nothing like a trip to any conventional grocery store. There will be music by local musicians and cooking demonstrations by local chefs. There will be cheese from Kenny’s Country Cheese and fruits from Jackson’s Orchard and locally grown and harvested meats, eggs, and vegetables from dozens of other residents of our region, the Barrens. But the market will be even more than a festive place to purchase fresh and healthy foods – it is a first step toward a diversified and truly sustainable local economy.

Sustainable Glasgow, Inc. has more ideas and plans. It is our intention to revitalize our local economy and reinvent our community, transforming a good community into a great place that does not have to convince folks to visit us or locate here - a place that creates its own gravity by providing a desirable lifestyle which a sustainable economy creates. The Bounty of the Barrens Market will connect grower and consumer and act as our opening gambit in the process of community reconciliation which, we hope, will ultimately lead us back to a connection with each other and our land.

We want the market to act as a community convener, a community builder and a preserver and restorer of relationships. So, please make plans to come and commune with your neighbors each Saturday throughout the summer; but please do not think of the market as simplistic, for it certainly is not. In my day job we deal with very complicated technology and often feel that we are providing Glasgow with products which are unparalleled in our republic, but deep down we know that our technology is stone-age compared to the products you will find at the market. Perhaps Paul Hawken put it all into perspective when he concluded: “We humans have yet to create anything that is as complex and well-designed as the interactions of the microorganisms in a cubic foot of rich soil.” Come see us at the Bounty of the Barrens Market and see what the natural technology of our region has wrought.

All We Are Say-ing, Is Give Twitter a Chance...

2009-04-30T08:13:00.006-05:00

This just in! Click on this link for a great New York Times primer on using Twitter!

It has now been about six months since we first implored everyone in Glasgow to follow the EPB on Twitter. Since then, it has become nearly impossible to watch any newscast, or just about anything for that matter, where Twitter is not mentioned. Still, we are not getting the sort of participation that we need in order for the people of Glasgow to really benefit from this technology. So, this post will be sort of a repeat of our earlier post in the hope that you are ready to respond this time. We are using Twitter, and we think it might be a real breakthrough in our ability to keep our customers posted on what is going on -- right now!

Since we provide so many services which are essential to life and business in Glasgow, there are often messages that we need to get to you immediately. Just a couple of days ago a TVA switching problem caused the whole city to go dark in the middle of the afternoon of a beautiful spring day. Within seconds, our telephone system was totally overwhelmed with calls. Mostly, people just wanted to make sure we knew of the outage and they wanted to find out what was going on. For the folks who are already following us on Twitter, they already knew the answers to both of these questions. If you are reading this online, then you too have the power and the knowledge required to participate in this "insider information." To participate in getting the very latest real-time information, just click on this link or look on the left side of this blog at the new area entitled "Twitter Updates" and click on the link at the bottom of the updates that says "Follow the EPB on Twitter." Once there, follow the instructions to sign up for an account and then click on the "Follow" button to follow GlasgowEPB on Twitter. Then each time you come back to Twitter.com and sign in, you will see the updates from us! Also, if you have a cell phone (who doesn't?) and if it can receive text messages, enter that information when you are signing up for your Twitter account and you will get the EPB updates instantly when we post them (for some strange reason, this is still not working with Bluegrass Cellular phones, but they promise they are working on it!). Even if you were sitting in the dark after a power outage, you would get the updates from us via your cell phone. We think that feature has tremendous possibilities.

Twitter is the perfect way for one person, or company, to immediately speak to thousands of friends or customers. If all of our customers were receiving our Twitter updates, we could broadcast simple instructions via Twitter that would save everyone the trouble of calling in and having us give them reports and instructions one at a time. Obviously this would really ease everyone's minds during widespread power, internet, or cable television outages. Once we realize that a group of several hundred homes are off we could Twitter the information out to all, and, even if you were sitting in the dark without the ability to check Twitter or this blog for information, you could get the information via text message to your cell phone! Further, there are a lot of other Glasgow-centric possibilities for Twitter. Already WCLU uses Twitter to send out regular updates on local news. WBKO and Bowling Green Daily News do the same. If we are lucky, we might also convince our local 911 and other emergency services to start sending out Twitter updates to tell us about emergency situations or to answer the enduring question of life in Glasgow . . . what are all those sirens about and where are they going? The more of us that use Twitter, the more likely we will be able to influence other local agencies to use it as well and keep us better informed.

Of course, it will take a while for us to get thousands of customers signed up for Twitter and receiving these updates, but, let's start this morning and see how fast we can go! Twitter is free and it dramatically increases the value of the computer, internet service and cell phone service that you already pay for. If you need help signing up and setting up your Twitter account, please call or stop by our office. Together we can become a raging community of Tweeters!

The Dilemma Over Coal and Electric Power

2009-04-27T12:43:00.003-05:00

If you did not catch this exhaustive report on Sixty Minutes last night, I strongly suggest that you watch and read it by clicking here. This is not an issue that only affects folks outside of Glasgow. It will affect us all very directly. In fact, it might hit us sooner than the rest of the country because our power supplier, TVA, is already spending over a million dollars a day trying to clean up the massive spill of coal ash that occurred just before Christmas 2008. The money for that cleanup will soon find its way to our electric bills in Glasgow.

After reading and viewing this information, how about posting your comments and thoughts about it here on our blog?

While You Were Sleeping

2009-04-02T21:19:00.002-05:00

Last night, when you were not really looking or expecting it, we added some new channels for all of our cable customers who subscribe to our digital and HD tiers. In case you haven't yet noticed them, check out channel 145 - Chiller. As the name implies, you can read more about the channel on their website by clicking here. Basically, it all horror movies. I won't be watching that, but it is there for you!

Next, watch channel 195 for WHAS 24hour weather. While WHAS is presently still working to get this on the air, it will be, as the name implies, a 24 hour a day radar and weather summary of our region from Louisville's WHAS team.

Channel 524 on our HD tier is now USA-HD. USA Channel is one of the most popular on television. Now you can watch it in HD. Finally, channel 539 is now Sci-Fi-HD. All of your favorite SciFi shows and movies coming to you in HD!

Also, QVC has moved to Ch. 20 and Bravo has moved to Ch. 26.

You just never know what we are working on while you are sleeping! Enjoy...

Of the Internet and Glasgow

2009-03-24T15:20:00.002-05:00

Way back in 1991 we discovered that our new broadband network was capable of being used as a local area network (LAN). That means we were able to establish communications between a few folks that already had home computers and the new file servers and educational software that the Glasgow schools had bought. It was very cool and novel. The technology we were using meant that we had to actually crack open the computers and install a communications card manufactured by IBM that was intended for connecting computers in a large building. Once we discovered that they would work across our network connecting thousands of buildings, things really started to happen.

In those early days one of the coolest things we could demonstrate was the ability to access Encyclopedia Britannica which Glasgow Board of Education had purchased and installed on a file server in one of their schools. Thinking back on it now, it seems pretty lame, but in 1991 it was a big deal. That demonstration drew a lot of nationwide attention. A lot of that attention came from the telecommunications giant (now deceased) MCI. After a few years of visits to Glasgow and discussions about why a city might decide to build its own broadband network, we got a very important phone call from an MCI executive named Vinton Cerf. He asked me to meet him for lunch in Reston, VA. During that lunch he asked if Glasgow had considered connecting its broadband network to the internet. I admitted that we had, but that we had no idea how to accomplish that. He offered to help us and, within a few weeks, MCI established the first connection between the internet and Glasgow’s broadband network. That was late 1994 and everything since then has been a bit of a blur.

That first connection was a T1 circuit. T1 is telecommunications jargon for a 1.5 megabit per second (Mbps) pathway between Glasgow and the internet. Today such a circuit would be suitable only for a handful of medium sized businesses, but from the beginning in 1994 through about 1996, one T1 circuit carried all of Glasgow’s internet traffic. If the internet is represented as the interstate highway system, the T1 circuit would be similar to a gravel driveway, but it was our only connection to the interstate. Glasgow has always suffered some from its geography. I-65 passed us by and so did the main line of the railroad, and, to a large extent, the internet passed us by as well. Even though today our connections to the internet are big and getting much bigger, we still are not a major node on the world wide web, and that is at the center of most of the internet service interruptions we sometimes experience here in Glasgow.

While our initial gravel driveway connection to the world has now grown from 1.5 Mbps to 150 Mbps (perhaps now the equivalent of a pretty wide two lane road with occasional passing lanes included), we still have issues with that road. For example, we had a problem with that road just Friday past. Continuing on the road metaphor, Glasgow EPB owns the broadband roads all over Glasgow and parts of Barren County, but our “interchange” with the nationwide interstate network is inside our network operations center right at our offices. There, Windstream and AT&T take ownership of the highway and transport all of our traffic to a massive toll booth in Louisville. There, all of our traffic encounters an AT&T router which examines each piece of email, gaming, news, pictures, or anything else you think of as internet traffic. That router then decides if the traffic is allowed to pass and gives it directions on where to go. The router is sort of like the gatekeeper guy in the Emerald City when Dorothy and the scarecrow and others (Toto too!) knocked on the door and asked for an audience with the Wizard. The router decides who gets to come in and who has to stay outside where that really spooky witch is cavorting about. Well, on Friday the router/gatekeeper guy got new orders from the Wizard (AT&T) that no one from Glasgow was allowed in. That is why you were unable to utilize your internet connection from about 2:30 p.m. until about 7:00 p.m. that day. Within an hour we were certain that the problem was with the instructions AT&T had given the router, but, since we neither own, nor control, AT&T, we simply had to call and beg and plead for several hours while they took their own sweet time sending new orders to the router.

Obviously, we don’t like being treated this way and we are constantly striving to provide redundancy and greater capacity on our local “roads” as well as our roadways connecting Glasgow to the world. We also want to free ourselves from the tyranny which exists when we allow one gatekeeper (AT&T) to control all of our access to the world. What we really need is multiple roads leading out of Glasgow which lead to multiple gatekeepers so that one set of bad instructions cannot render us unable to communicate with the world. For that matter, we really need the same sort of architecture for electric power as well. It might surprise you, but Glasgow has only one source of electricity today just like we have only one internet roadway to the world. Luckily, our electric power gateway, operated by TVA, is a bit more sorted out and less likely to get bad instructions than the guy operating the door at AT&T. Of course we would really like to have redundant feeds for both electric power and internet connectivity, and, that is precisely what we are working on. The only real problem with providing this redundancy is that it is expensive, and folks in Glasgow have grown accustomed to high speed, high reliability, and low cost. . .three things that are very difficult to arrange at the same time. Still, we are trying to accomplish them all.

Within the next month, we will be completing our own fiber optic circuit to Bowling Green and, in turn, to an AT&T router which is in Bowling Green. This will finally allow us nearly infinite capacity to the internet. It will be like having a new twenty lane connector from I-65 directly to the Bypass in Glasgow. As we move traffic off the old highway and onto this new one, it is possible that you may see some service interruptions. The only way I know to explain this is to compare it to construction on the interstate. All of those orange barrels and lower speed limits are frustrating during construction, but after it is over, man, the road is sooo nice! But still, initially our new road will still terminate at only one big AT&T router, so the possibility of bad instructions or other AT&T issues will still be a problem, but we have a plan for that as well.

Other major internet gateways also exist in Bowling Green, and we are working to establish redundant connections to them. Also, other cities like Hopkinsville, and Murray are building similar new roads to connect themselves to neighboring cities and we are working with them to interconnect our fiber to their’s. As that develops, we will eventually have fiber routes all the way to Nashville, and that will open the door for us to interconnect with many other competitive major internet gateways. So, the time is coming when one provider will not be able to totally cripple our internet access, but it is not coming tomorrow. There is work to do and money to be spent before we arrive in internet nirvana.

Peering a bit further over the horizon, it is possible to imagine a time when the interconnected cities might band together to establish themselves as a major internet gatekeeper on our own! If we are successful in bring that about, we may see the major internet content providers like Google, Yahoo, CNN, and others actually seek to locate some of their servers and connections on our fiber backbone. At the same time, if our infotricity idea takes hold, Glasgow might become the provider for advanced electric power metering services for all of the cities connected via the fiber backbone. All of these thing may lead to Glasgow having the most robust internet speeds and capacities in North America. All of these things are possible, but not guaranteed. Still, it is our intention to keep working on our roads and improving their capacity. This work will continue to provide benefits for you, and the occasional frustration. The former should far outweigh the latter, but don’t expect perfection. While no one works harder than we do to deliver the very best internet service possible, we are still human and we do sometimes make mistakes.

What Things Will Come

2009-03-11T08:03:00.004-05:00

Hot on the heels of our recent posts about how broadband and electric power could be combined to offer solutions to the energy crisis we all face, comes this article from American Public Power Association. It is an interesting read as it paints the scene we have been describing from a totally new and independent perspective.

One thing is certain. Change is coming. We can try to steer that change by utilizing our network and our ideas about altering the way everyone uses energy, or, as the article below implies, we can all just prepare to pay a lot more to keep doing things the way we have for the last one hundred years. I know which choice makes the most sense. I hope you agree...

The next few years will be exciting for people in the electric utility business, as utilities struggle to decarbonize their portfolios and as consumers struggle with rising energy bills, a panel of CEOs agreed yesterday at an energy conference in Washington, D.C.

"If you're not up for an exciting time, you're in the wrong business," said APPA President and CEO Mark Crisson. The next decade or so will be a transition period that will make the difference as to what the electricity sector will look like 40 years from now, he said.

"The next five or 10 years will be exciting," agreed Richard Kelly, president, CEO and chairman of Xcel Energy.

"It will be interesting to see how we can decarbonize electricity over the next couple of decades," said Hank Courtright, senior vice president of the Electric Power Research Institute.

"It may be more than exciting," said Glenn English, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. "There many be moments of sheer terror."

The electricity sector faces Herculean challenges, said Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute. "How to build transmission lines that will cost billions?" he asked. "How are you gong to reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2050?" he said, calling climate change "the mother of all issues."

They spoke at the EnergyBiz Leadership Forum, a two-day conference sponsored by EnergyBiz Magazine, USA Today, Energy Central, Oracle Utilities and several other companies.

"We've only got two objectives: to make sure consumers have enough power, and make sure they can afford it," English said. But both of those goals look increasingly hard to carry out, he said. Even with multibillion-dollar annual investments in carbon capture and storage technology, 2020 is the earliest anyone can expect CCS to be operable, he said. Until then, and perhaps beyond, utilities have to eliminate coal as a choice for new power plants, because Congress is bound to pass legislation soon that will make coal-fired power much more expensive, he said.

"We are removing our primary fuel of choice for the last 20 years," English said. "How in the world are we going to get through this?"

On climate change, APPA "would like to see the right bill" come out of Congress sooner rather than later, Crisson said. In today's economic environment, Congress is likely to be more sensitive to consumers' concerns, he said.

"We think it's important to minimize the impact on the consumer," Crisson said. That is why APPA is opposed to a proposal in the Obama administration's budget that calls for the federal government to auction off carbon emission allowances to the highest bidder. Under that proposal, the government would sell 100% of the allowances.

"We don't like this approach at all," said Crisson. "We think a cap-and-trade system is a thinly veiled tax and we have concerns around auctions," he said. One of those concerns is that prices may be volatile. Another is how the market could influence the auction process. APPA also is concerned about where the revenues would go, he said.
"We'd rather see a direct fee or tax," he said.

If a cap-and-trade system is used, all of the allowances should be allocated, rather than auctioned, at least in the beginning, he said. Then, the auction process could "grow at a pace that ensures protections for consumers," he said.

"We think it's extremely important that any climate bill isn't a tax collection bill," and that any auction revenues stay within the energy communities, said Kuhn. Price collars should be built into the auction system, "so the price doesn't fluctuate wildly to the benefit of traders," he said. EEI has endorsed a set of principles for climate change legislation that calls for half the emissions allowances to be allocated, and the other half auctioned. Gradually, the allocated allowances would be scaled back, he said.

How to handle allocations may be the biggest issue in the debate over designing a cap-and-trade program, Kuhn said. He agreed with Crisson that it will be important to avoid rapidly escalating electricity prices, which would cause a backlash by customers.

Marty Rosenberg, editor in chief of EnergyBiz Magazine, asked English whether he thinks Congress understands the issues involved.

"I don't think they get it," English replied. "I don't think they've focused on it. That's scary, when you realize how short a time we have. If we are going to have a strong climate change bill, that will severely limit the options available to us. Some time during the next decade, we will see brownouts and blackouts in some areas," he said. "We will see large price increases. I don't think the public is prepared for that."

Some people think their bills will go down because of the new emphasis on renewable resources such as wind and solar power, and there is a perception that "the wind and sun are free," English said.

On the contrary, he predicted, "We're going to see rates go up very steeply."

"We need time to inform consumers of what is coming because I don't think they have a clue," Crisson said.