Flathead Electric Cooperative ___________________________________________________________________________
As a public utility owned by the members it serves, Flathead Electric Cooperative( FEC) provides electricity to residential, commercial, and industrial customers in northwest and south-central Montana. Now the largest cooperative in Montana, FEC is a member of Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative( PNGC), a generation and transmission( G & T) cooperative comprised of 25 electric distribution cooperatives operating in seven Western states.
Formed in 1937, FEC was established by a group of neighbors in Northwest Montana and started to provide electric service to 117 farm homes in 1938. FEC’ s COO, Jason Williams, joins us to elaborate on the cooperative’ s evolution.“ FEC originally operated as a typical cooperative serving the rural communities surrounding the municipalities in Flathead County,” Jason opens.“ However, in 1998, FEC purchased the Montana facilities of the investor-owned utility, PacifiCorp, and essentially doubled its size overnight. Today, FEC provides electric service to over 77,000 meters and is the second largest electric utility in Montana.
Jason Williams,
COO,
“ Over the course of my 21-year career at FEC, our power supply has gone from 100-percent Bonneville Power Administration( BPA) provided to approximately 97.5 percent BPA provided. BPA is a federal power agency that markets the energy generated by the hydro dams and one nuclear facility that comprises the Federal Columbia River Power System. BPA owns and operates around 75 percent of the transmission lines in the Pacific Northwest, including all the transmission lines and the power generated by two dams in our service territory of Northwest Montana.
“ Of the 97.5 percent power supplied by BPA, about 90 percent is considered carbon free, and the other 2.5 percent is from carbon-free resources we have either built or are contracted to purchase power from. We have two community solar projects, two small hydro projects, a landfill gas-toenergy project that burns methane, and a biomass fueled project with a local lumber company. We’ re also nearing completion of our third community solar project, which will be complete with a battery to dispatch during high demand.
“ We currently rely on BPA to provide transmission capacity to serve our growing energy needs, but we’ re starting to push the limits in terms of availability as we’ re using our full allotment of the hydro system,” Jason explains.“ We’ re currently contracted to purchase power from a wind farm and a solar installation, but as we continue to grow, we’ re exploring other potential baseload generating facilities to diversify from BPA.”
As wildfires are increasing in commonality, FEC has a robust mitigation strategy.“ Our approach revolves around vegetation management practices and the use of technology,” Jason states.“ We have approximately 1600 miles of overhead lines in state and federal forests, as well as on private land, and we’ re currently using a company called Overstory to help assess our highest
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