Archive for category: General Information

Staff visited the cities of Cimarron, Garden City, Lakin, Johnson City, Hugoton and Montezuma on January 30th and 31st.

2016 was an eventful year for your agencies and I wanted to hit on a couple highlights. We continue to grow in both agencies – 3 new members began taking natural gas supply from KMGA – the City of Burrton, the City of Russell’s power plant, and finally the City of Wellington’s power plant and Fire station. On the KMEA side, the City of Kiowa joined the EMP3 group and the City of Anthony joined the EMP2 group. We now have 33 cities under our three EMP groups including the City of Eudora where we manage the cities energy supply and interaction with the Southwest Power Pool energy markets.

After a thorough process managed by the EMP joint advisory committee, the Agency transitioned to an in-house 24/7 operations. In addition to the benefits of managing these services in-house (control, confidentiality, sustainability, etc.), the Agency saved over $350,000 per year from the prior third party contractor costs. The 24/7 Operations started up without a hitch on September 29. I want to personally thank the KMEA staff (Tom, Sam, Paula, David, Kent, D.J., Garrett, Neil, John and Jennifer) for their outstanding efforts to make this transition as easy and as smooth as possible.

2017 will also be a busy year as we continue to work on power supply opportunities regarding potential renewable resources (wind and solar) and the Dogwood Energy Facility. In addition, we will continue to be heavily involved in the Southwest Power Pool activities this year as SPP continues to evolve and make changes regarding the Integrated Marketplace and the regional transmission system.

Finally, we are looking to improve our communication stream with all our members and this e-newsletter is just one of the ways that we will reach out. In addition to your existing staff, your new Manager of Member Services, Gerry Bieker, has hit the road running (literally) since coming on board in August. We value these face-to-face meetings with the membership and hope you do as well.

The entire KMEA staff looks forward to working with all of you this upcoming year!

Five Cities were represented from the Northwest corner of the state at a lunch meeting presented by KMEA and hosted by the City of Colby. This meeting was an initial meeting to discuss opportunities to work together to create efficiencies for everyone involved.  The group had a very good discussion and developed a direction for their efforts.

Last Wednesday, December 21st the KMEA Executive Committee Meeting was held at the new KMU Training Center in McPherson, KS. The Ribbon cutting ceremony and the open house for KMU’s new training center was held on November 29th.  The center has three sections: a 7,000-square-foot garage for hands-on training indoors, a 200-seat auditorium classroom, and offices for KMU employees.

As a member KMEA congratulates KMU on the completion of this successful project.