“The holidays.” I love everything about this time of year. Just the thought of the holiday season brings a smile to my face and evokes a sense of comfort and nostalgia. Recalling family gatherings and traditions warms my heart.
It’s a time of reflection, and a personal reminder of how grateful I am for my own family as well as my co-op family. At Boone REMC, we’re driven by a sense of mission and purpose. Our team feels a strong connection to our community and our members because we live here, too.
While many of our community-focused programs and activities, such as Shop with a Cop and the Myrtle Bailey Toy Drive, ramp up this time of year, we also have several programs and services in place to help our members year-round. I’d like to remind you about some of these offerings in hopes that you will find them beneficial.
SmartHub is an app we offer that empowers you to monitor, manage, and pay your energy bill conveniently through your phone.
We also offer energy efficiency programs to save you money and energy. Our member service technicians offer energy audits and evaluations. We also have a new pilot program, called Sense monitoring, that allows you to monitor your real-time usage.
Our Operation Round Up program helps not-for-profits pay for programs that benefit the entire community. By simply “rounding up” your energy bills to the next whole dollar amount, you can help others within our community. Through members’ generous donations over the last 15 years, we’ve been able to give over $800,000 to nonprofits in the communities we serve.
In addition to helping members save today, we’re focusing on future saving opportunities. In our area, we’re seeing increased interest in renewable energy resources. Recent innovations and advances have led to significant cost decreases in renewable energy, making it more feasible and accessible. In recent years, Wabash Valley Power Alliance, our power provider, has been able to adjust our fuel mix by incorporating more renewables. Wabash Valley Power Alliance announced a target date of 2050 to attain net-zero carbon-dioxide emissions in their power generation portfolio. When compared to 2005 emissions, WVPA plans to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon output by 2031, and 70% by 2040.
