Author Archive for: KMEA

We are excited to introduce Ken Carney as the newest member of the KMEA Mid-States family. Ken joined us on January 21, 2025, as a Field Services Foreman, bringing with him a lot of experience.

Ken’s journey began in Abilene, Kansas, where he was born and raised. At the age of 16, he moved to Ropesville, Texas, where he completed his high school education. It was in Ropesville that Ken and his brother embarked on an entrepreneurial adventure, starting a business building grain elevator parts.

Ken’s professional journey took him to Great Plains, where he dedicated 10 years of service, followed by a remarkable 25-year tenure at Solomon Corporation.

The 2024 Annual City Questionnaire is now available. Your participation is crucial as the data collected will help us calculate annual dues accurately.

Please take a moment to complete the questionnaire electronically by clicking the link provided in the flyer below.

The deadline for submission is February 24, 2025.

On January 20, President Trump appointed Mark Christie as Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Christie began his term as a FERC Commissioner on January 4, 2021, following his nomination by President Trump in July 2020 and subsequent confirmation by the U.S. Senate on November 30, 2020. Immediately before joining FERC, Christie was the Chairman of the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC), on which he served for nearly 17 years, having been elected three times by the Virginia legislature on bipartisan votes. During his service as a state regulator, he was elected president of the Organization of PJM States, Inc. (OPSI), representing 13 states and the District of Columbia in the PJM transmission and markets organization, and served on its governing board for over a decade.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity released three Notices of Funding Opportunity totaling nearly $18.4 million for programs to support research and development of electricity grid technologies.

The programs will reduce the cost of high-voltage direct current circuit breakers, improve risk assessment and communication for grid operators, and ensure communities are ready to respond to unanticipated energy storage system failures, it said.

“Upgrading critical systems and controls will extend the life of existing grid components, increase the grid’s ability to receive, transmit, and deliver electricity, and improve communications to help predict and prevent failures,” it said.

“Moreover, quantifying and clearly communicating risk and uncertainties to decision-makers and human operators enables more accurate and effective prediction, prevention, and mitigation of cascading failures in the grid. In addition, ensuring communities are prepared to safely manage and monitor energy storage systems is critical to successfully deploying storage technologies.”