Manager’s Message — January 2022

Dear Members:

Happy New Year! 2021 was another trying year for everyone, and we are pleased to begin 2022 with some good news. Plumas- Sierra Telecommunications was awarded four additional California Advanced Services Fund grants totaling more than $22 million to continue expanding broadband services to some of the hardest-to-reach areas of our region. These grants will help PST cover Greenhorn, Spring Garden, parts of Mohawk Valley, parts of Sierra Valley, including Old Truckee Road, and parts of Lassen County. Construction will begin in spring. If you have not yet contacted us to get on our interest list for service, please call us at 530-832-4261 or visit www.pst.coop.

We are also pleased to report that we are back on our normal transmission feed from PG&E. We had been without our primary feed since July 13, 2021. Keeping the lights on has been onerous work for many months. We would really like to thank the Northern California Power Agency for their help in driving PG&E to restore power in a timely manner. We were frustrated by the length of time it took to complete the work, but it is done at last.

Again, thanks so much to the three prisons on our system that were key in keeping your lights on when they ran their own generators. And thanks to Sierra Army Depot for running individual generators for many months.

I can’t thank the hardworking System Control and Data Acquisition team that has staffed the control room for more than four months. If you know them or see them, please thank Jason Harston, Matt Brubaker, Katie Willis, and Tim Retallack for their hard work and dedication that allowed us to keep the lights on for all this time. And please thank the board and any past board members for their support and efforts to make our system reliable. Without the Marble Intertie and our High Sierra Cogeneration plant, we would have had a very difficult time.

Lastly, thanks to every member who conserved power when we needed it!

Continue To Be Prepared for Outages

Even though your cooperative has invested in system improvements, removed hazard trees, and kept up its ongoing maintenance, outages can and will happen. Being prepared can help make the best of a bad situation. Please visit our website for information on outage preparedness and electrical safety. We also would like to encourage everyone to put high-quality surge protection on your home electronics. Manufacturers are supposed to build modern electronics to code, which means they can withstand a surge, but this doesn’t always happen. Between risks posed by lightning, trees, and power surges from the grid, investing in high-quality surge protection will pay for itself over time.

PSREC’s outage notification system provides localized outage information to members via text and email. To view the most up-to-date outage information or to report an outage, please log in to the PSREC SmartHub app on your Apple or Android device, or log in at our website. Please report all outages to us, day or night, at (530) 832-4261 or through the app.

Scholarships

PSREC and PST are again offering scholarships to students who receive either electric or internet services from PSREC or PST at their primary residence in Plumas, Sierra, Lassen, or Washoe counties.

An application is posted on our website. The deadline is April 25. For more information, visit our Scholarships page.

If you have any questions or would like more information, please call me at (530) 832-4261 ext. 6076 or email me.