Dear Members:
The 2025 annual meeting is at 6 p.m. Thursday, September 4, at the Vinton Grange Hall. Additionally, we will broadcast the meeting via our YouTube channel. To join the meeting, visit our website and click the link in the banner at the top of the page.
New for 2025: All members in attendance at the 2025 Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative (PSREC) Annual Meeting will receive a $25 bill credit.
If you are not attending in person, we encourage members to send questions in advance by emailing Marketing or by using the form included in your voting packet. We will also take questions through the chat function during the meeting.
2024 Financial Results: Last year was the second good financial year in a row for the cooperative after the losses seen in 2022. This year has also been good for power costs, allowing Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative to maintain rates and further build its financial strength back to the goals laid out by the board of directors.
At the beginning of 2025, PSREC converted the wholesale power cost adjustment of 3¢ per kilowatt-hour into its base rates. Last year, we were concerned about the need for a rate increase in 2025, but we are able to avoid an increase this year due to normal precipitation this past winter, combined with excellent water storage in key federal reservoirs held over from the wet winter of 2024. See our enclosed treasurer’s report for more information.
Fort Sage: We continue our work on the Fort Sage Transmission Line and Substation. We received a grant from the Defense Community Infrastructure Program, covering roughly 1/3 of the cost of the Fort Sage Line. The project has received a Categorical Exclusion from our regulatory agencies. We have begun ordering key long-leadtime items, including a new transformer, and hope to have the groundbreaking soon.
This new transmission line should give us some relief from the California power markets and transmission rate increases. The project is expected to come into service in 2028. The costs of construction should be offset over time by transmission and generation savings. We strongly believe building to the east will keep rates lower than they would be otherwise. It will also minimize transmission power outages and give us more control of power supply options, along with the ability to back up 100% of our utility load during Public Safety Power Shutoffs from the 2 utilities we currently use to deliver our power. This will improve our overall system reliability during winter storms.
PSREC continues to improve system reliability and response times through its supervisory control and data acquisition system. PSREC continued its increased vegetation management and removal of hazard trees on the system to improve reliability and fire safety. We appreciate the cooperation of our member-owners in removing trees. A hazard tree may look green and alive, but it still may have to be removed due to defects. Not removing these trees is not an option for the cooperative.
Other utilities to our west have turned off their electric grid to prevent fires caused by the electric grid. Through maintenance and aggressive vegetation management, we have been able to avoid power shutoffs, but we may have to implement shutoffs if weather conditions become extreme— especially in the westernmost part of our cooperative service territory. If this happens, our crews will patrol our lines and restore service as fast as possible. 1 of the benefits of member ownership is that PSREC is properly staffed and focused on our communities.
Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications: PSREC is happy to report that our subsidiary, Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications (PST), is expanding its system and bringing improved services to our members and the surrounding community. You can read the PST report for more information.
We have also been pleased with the financial performance of PST. PST shares expenses with PSREC and has saved the co-op more than $500,000 in 2024 and will again in 2025. In addition, PST was profitable in 2024 for the third year in a row and is expected to continue being profitable. Another benefit of our telecommunications subsidiary is that thousands of our distribution power poles are being upgraded to sturdier poles that support new fiber-optic cables.
PSREC and PST send outage notifications via email and text messages. To sign up for these notices, log into SmartHub and visit the “manage notifications” section to select the alerts you want to receive. If you need assistance, call us at (530) 832-4261.
Community Solar: The PSREC Community Solar Program continues to offer blocks of 100 kWhs a month to members who want to use solar. PSREC offers members the choice of a monthly adder to their existing rate or a one-time, upfront fee to participate in the program.
Buying solar power from PSREC’s Community Solar Program is a great option for members who may not want to make the large upfront investment in a solar system or rent or live in an area with shading where a solar energy system would not produce optimal energy output. Community solar is a great, maintenance-free way to use renewable power without solar panels on your roof. When you go through the Plumas-Sierra solar program, there is no risk of damage to your house, nor of nonperformance by third parties. For more information or to sign up for the PSREC Community Solar Program, call (530) 832-4261 or visit our website.
We hope you will join us at 6 p.m. Thursday, September 4, for the annual membership meeting.
Sincerely,
Fred Nelson
PSREC Board President
Bob Marshall
General Manager