Our power supplier, Great River Energy (GRE) has began preparing its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), which must be filed with the State of Minnesota next spring. I was invited to attend a stakeholder meeting in late August, whereby GRE laid out its plan for transitioning its power resource portfolio further away from carbon-based fuels and […]
Category: News
TWEC Members Enjoy Pancakes and EVs
Over 400 members and their families attended the annual Todd-Wadena Electric Cooperative (TWEC) member appreciation event for pancakes and sausage, prepared by Sebeka Lions Club, and the electric vehicle ride & drive on Tuesday, August 23rd at the Co-op’s headquarters. TWEC lineworkers presented electrical safety demonstrations to attendees. TWEC mini members enjoyed the kids lineworker […]
2022 Youth Tour
By Ally Pavek The 2022 Youth Tour was incredible!! I had a great time on this trip seeing what all of Washington, D.C. has to offer, including meeting lots of new people, having the opportunity to meet with our legislators, as well as learning more about electric cooperatives and how much of an impact they […]
Electric Vehicles in Minnesota
Currently there are roughly 26,000 electric vehicles (EVs) on the road in MN. Minnesota (MnDot and Governor Walz administration) has a goal for 20% of vehicles on the road to be electric by 2030—an estimated 777,307 EVs. While our service territory as a whole can accommodate hundreds of EVs at this time, each individual distribution […]
Democratic Process // August 2022 CEO Column
The democratic process is at the heart of everything cooperatives do, and it all starts with member participation in electing your board of directors each year at our annual meeting. We call that “grassroots” efforts because you are advocating for change at the local level, at the “root” of the organization. Cooperatives are also involved […]
Meet the Candidates — September 8th
On September 8th, 2022, Todd-Wadena Electric Cooperative (TWEC) will host a Meet the Candidates event for all eligible voters at the Lions Community Center in Verndale. A social hour with light refreshments will start at 6:30 p.m., and at 7 p.m. the candidate forum will begin. Issues involving rural access to broadband, rate regulation of […]
Vegetation Management Helps Keep the Lights On
Year to date, Todd-Wadena Electric Cooperative (TWEC) has had 143 outages caused by trees. These have affected nearly 3,000 members, with over 4,200 hours of power off. “When we have storms like we’ve had this season with strong maintained winds, there’s not a whole lot that can be done to prevent outages from happening. However, […]
Electric Vehicle (EV) First Responder Safety Training
In June, TWEC hosted an electric vehicle safety training program for first responders. This was a regional event offering the training to all local community first responders. The course was taught by staff of Safety and Security Consultation Specialists, LLC (SASCS), a first responder training company based out of southern Minnesota. In the past 10 […]
Reliability // CEO Column July 2022
Reliable power is an expectation that many of us never have to think about and hadn’t until events in other parts of the United States exposed how fragile the grid can be. Both California (2020) and Texas (2021) suffered blackouts that impacted thousands of customers. As of late, and much closer to home, there have […]
Dedicated Employees // CEO Column June 2022
The May storms that hit not only Todd-Wadena’s service territory, but many of our neighbors as well, brought unprecedented outages. As our team of employees worked hard to restore power as quickly and safely as possible, we were encouraged by the support we received from cooperative members. I want to take this opportunity to thank […]