We have celebrated numerous significant achievements throughout Steuben County REMC’s 87-year history. However, the completion of the broadband fiber network in December of last year may have just topped them all. Now, northeast Indiana has a reliable not-for-profit broadband network capable of not only meeting our current communication and data needs but also our children’s and grandchildren’s.

To get to this point, a lot of hard work had to take place from the board of directors, engineers, and operation personnel to plan, design, and build a network equal to or better than our neighbors living in any urban area. Today, our members have a high-speed internet option without limitations or concerns for future technological changes. With our total fiber optic system, we will be able to keep pace with new and developing trends in education, economic development, health care, and entertainment, which separates us from most other rural areas of Indiana.

The physical construction of this network started in the summer of 2022, and at the time, we thought it would take three to four years to complete. However, our board and membership interest continued to grow, and after just 18 months, the system was complete. It includes over 655 miles of primary fiber line with three communication huts and two direct internet access points connecting northeast Indiana to the outside world. We currently have 3,750 members connected, or in the process of being connected, to the network and we are receiving three to five new service requests each business day. Should this level of interest continue, we anticipate having nearly 5,000 accounts by this time next year.

As you can imagine, building this kind of infrastructure can be costly, and thanks to the pandemic and the inflationary pressures our nation experienced in recent years, the project did come in higher than we anticipated at $32 million, thus reducing equity to 31.5%. So, now that the hard part is behind us, we can focus on getting this valuable service to as many members as possible and, in doing so, improve their quality of life and get the network to operate independently and replenish our equity.

However, it will take some time, and even with the most advanced network in the area, we will still face challenges in some locations, primarily from for-profit companies with dated infrastructure and questionable business practices. Many of them recently began advertising low monthly rates, which, if you look closely, include hook-up charges, modem rental, hidden fees, and contracts, allowing the rates to increase sharply in just a few months. Remember, these are the same companies that for years did little to improve their level of service and, like the investor-owned electric utilities of the 1930s and 40s, were only interested in maximizing their profits by leaving the countryside under-served and in the dark, which is why your not-for-profit cooperative exists. Don’t let them trick you into thinking that all of that has changed, and they are now interested in giving you low-price, top-of-the-line service. They could have done that years ago.

On the electric side of your cooperative, we remain committed to providing you with the best service possible day in and day out. In February 2023, our commitment to this effort was tested when our region was hit with a devastating ice storm. The storm covered some areas with as much as three-quarters of an inch of heavy ice and caused widespread outages throughout our service territory. As a result, the restoration process took three long days to complete, and I can’t thank all of the employees enough for their hard work and dedication. In addition to our employees, we also had six outside operation crews helping us from four neighboring cooperatives and a subcontractor.

By the time all was said and done, our recovery cost approached $250,000 and ranks as the largest outage event we have experienced in over 25 years.

In addition, many of the challenges we have mentioned over the last few years regarding generation and transmission remain. We continue to see a transition from coal and gas to renewable resources like wind and solar that simply don’t have the same capacity and availability, making it more difficult to meet our peak load requirements in both the winter and summer.

Further complicating this issue is the MISO or regional transmission organizations’ lengthy lead times for approval and construction of new generation and transmission facilities, which currently stands at eight years. There are no signs of immediate relief to this problem.

In response to this challenge, your cooperative — in collaboration with our wholesale power provider, Wabash Valley Power — is planning to take a proactive step toward the problem by introducing a new whole-house generating program to reduce our peak loads. We hope to have all the details for the program worked out by this summer. Enrollment information will follow soon.

Financially, your cooperative ended 2023 in a solid position, with margins of about $280,000 less our G&T capital credit allocation. Our retail rates continue to be among the most competitive in the region.