Dear Members:
The Plumas-Sierra REC Board of Directors has appointed Jerry Williams to serve out the remaining term of District 6 after the resignation of Tom Hammond. The board also redistricted the cooperative’s districts to rebalance the districts for equity between districts. District 6 covers the Grizzly Road area, Lake Davis, the north side of Portola, the north of Hwy 70 from Portola to Blairsden, along with the southern and western part of Plumas- Eureka Estates.
Jerry has been a member of the cooperative for 26 years and is a retired geography professor. He taught at California State University- Chico and has a long record of community involvement in the Chico region and in the Portola area, including being on the board of Friends of Portola Library and the Eastern Plumas Community Action Network.
In addition to Jerry, 3 other members also showed interest in the position. All candidates were qualified, and the board had a tough decision to make. We appreciate everyone who was willing to volunteer for the board.
Districts 6 and 7 are up for election this year. District 7 covers Highway 395 starting at Lassen County Road A-26 and all members west of A-26 and all members north of the intersection of A-25 and 395. Incumbent Nancy Miller is running in District 7, and Jerry is running in District 6.
If you are interested in running for the PSREC Board of Directors and live in 1 of the 2 districts, contact the co-op as soon as possible. The nominating committee meets in June and will review qualifications and requests for nomination. Members can also be nominated by petition, which requires 25 signatures from members of the cooperative. Unlike voter rolls, it is 1 member per household. The deadline for nomination by petition is July 27. Contact the co-op if you are interested in being nominated by petition to make sure the process is done correctly.
PSREC Annual Meeting
The annual meeting is Thursday, Sept. 10, at Sierra Valley Grange Hall. The August issue of Ruralite will have meeting details and voting materials for the director election, as well as information on how to watch the meeting live on YouTube. Be sure to look for that information.
If you are unsure of your district, visit psrec.coop to view the map or call the office at (530) 832-4261. A copy of the PSREC director qualifications and nomination procedures is available online.
Liberty Utilities & Power Supply
We have received numerous questions about recent news articles about NV Energy and Liberty Utilities. NV Energy serves Reno, Las Vegas and other small towns with transmission and generation in Nevada, and is a transmission provider into California, serving Truckee Donner PUD, PSREC’s backup line and Liberty Utilities. Liberty Utilities’ parent corporation bought the California assets of NV Energy in the 2000s and is the distribution utility for Portola, Delleker, Loyalton, Sierra Brooks, the territory around the town of Truckee and the California side of Lake Tahoe. Sometime in 2027, the contract between NV Energy and Liberty for power supply comes to an end. Liberty will then have to shop for power, first from the Nevada and Utah power markets.
In many of the news articles about the situation, NV Energy is planning on selling power to data centers, not Liberty. Liberty has stated this is normal, and they are shopping for power.
We have been asked how this Liberty/NV Energy situation affects us and our plans to build a new transmission line to the NV Energy Fort Sage substation east of Herlong. The answer is relatively simple—it doesn’t.
However, part of the story does affect us, and that is the growth of data centers in Nevada, California and Utah. Depending on how fast new resources are deployed, the growth of data centers in Nevada and Utah could drive up the market price for power in the Nevada and Utah markets. This will drive up the price for long-term firm power purchases, but PSREC is working with neighboring utilities to develop our own power resources through Joint-Action Agencies including the Northern California Power Agency and the Utah Association of Municipal Power Systems. We are working to build our own power supplies with our partners that we would all control. We have done this successfully for decades and own portions of power plants throughout California. Additionally, we have PSREC’s own 6 megawatt cogeneration plan along with a 2.5 MW solar power plant on our grid at Sierra Army Depot.
The mass stampede to build data centers throughout California, Nevada, and Utah, it raises the question of how many of them are truly needed or wanted. Industry experts are concerned about the long-term demand. How many will be built, and what will happen as the computer chips required for these data centers become more efficient? There is also the issue of water consumption for cooling in data centers. Opposition to data centers based on water consumption is growing in rural areas.
PSREC believes being flexible in where we buy power will give us the best options going forward. We plan to retain access to both the Nevada and California power markets.
PSREC’s board and management are aware of the impact data centers have on the Western power grid, and we are working to mitigate the impact to our members.
The subject of data centers and the power grid is somewhat vast in its scope and is something discussed in the industry on an almost-daily basis. Feel free to email me with more questions.
Telecommunications
Our crews are continuing to make significant progress on building our fiber network. Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications crews and contractors have been busy in the Loyalton Pines and Sierra Brooks areas, along with the Quincy Area. Call (530) 832-4126 to get on our installation schedule.
On the North End, crews are working on splicing fiber in grant areas. Call (530) 832-4126 to check your home’s eligibility, as well as to be placed on our waitlist.
Additionally, PST has installed new wireless systems in Red Rock and Chilcoot and is in the process of upgrading the Cat Cut access point in Honey Lake Valley. If you are interested in signing up for service, call PST at (530) 832-4126 to schedule your installation.
If you are searching for internet service or wondering if you should make a long-term commitment with another provider, check with us first. We hear repeatedly that if people knew our services were about to arrive, they wouldn’t have signed a different provider’s long-term contract. PST’s fiber-optic service offers speeds up to 1 gigabyte per second, with 10G service commercially available in some areas. Our wireless broadband service offers download speeds up to 100 Mbps in some areas.
For more information or to sign up for service, call (530) 832-4261 or visit the PST website.
Reliability
Providing reliable power to our members is and will always be our priority. During April and May, we had several short outages on our electric system and a telecommunications outage. The April 11 electric outage was caused by problems on the PG&E system, which caused PSREC to lose its main transmission feed. A second short electric outage on April 28 was also caused by PG&E. The May 3 outage was caused by lightning and a tree on our lines. On the telecommunications side, a timber contractor caused an internet outage in the Quincy area on April 28.
If you have questions, contact me by phone at (530) 832-4261 extension 6076 or by emailing Bob Marshall.
Sincerely,
Bob Marshall
General Manager