Contact: NOVEC Public Relations, 1-888-335-0500, customerservice@novec.com
Virginia House of Delegates honors J. Manley
Garber
MANASSAS, Va. — Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative members
elected Sean Bodkin
and Brent George to serve on the
Cooperative's board of directors when more than 1,000 people gathered at NOVEC's
annual meeting at Battlefield High School in Haymarket, Va., on Sept. 16.
Bodkin is an associate counsel for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Canadian power authorities. Bodkin works with FERC to investigate the reliability of electric-industry systems and operations. Bodkin lives in Aldie.
Brent "Budda" George is president and CEO of a consulting group that provides consulting services to the intelligence and defense industry. George lives in South Riding.
Prior to the election, Delegate Bob Marshall honored Board Director J. Manley Garber with a plaque from the Virginia House of Delegates commending Garber for 65 years of service on the Cooperative's board.
"Manley is the longest-serving co-op board director in the U.S.A.," Marshall told the packed auditorium. "Manley has been a rudder for this consumer-owned cooperative since its earliest days."
After a standing ovation, Garber explained that he became involved with the Cooperative because the investor-owned utility would not serve many of the farms in the Woodbridge area where he lived. Garber said, "It may be hard to believe, but if you didn't live in town or on the main road, you didn't have electricity." He said NOVEC's predecessor, Prince William Electric Cooperative, formed and starting providing power in the 1940s to everyone who joined the co-op.
State-of-the-Cooperative
Board Chairman Wade House
told members the
board will be making important power-supply decisions as the Co-op estimates
that energy requirements will more than double in the next few years.
House noted NOVEC's financial strength and announced
that the board has approved a $3.8 million capital-credits return to members in
December. With this CashBack return, members will have received a total of $6.7
million in 2015 and $293 million since 2000.
President and CEO Stan Feuerberg said NOVEC is supplying renewable energy to its customers mainly from NOVEC's Halifax County Biomass Plant and Prince William County Landfill's waste-to-energy generators. In addition, he said the Co-op's new energy-efficient office in Loudoun County, scheduled to open in 2016, will have a pilot solar-energy system.
Feuerberg reported that NOVEC continues to hold onto its record as the most reliable electric utility among seven utilities in the Washington, D.C., region and was ranked second highest in overall customer satisfaction in J.D. Power and Associates' recent study of the 140 largest electric utilities in the U.S. He noted that the Co-op ranked for the first time in the top five in all survey components —power quality and reliability, price, billing and payment, corporate citizenship, communications, and customer service.
Feuerberg said, "Ranking in the top five in all six categories is a remarkable achievement."
Regarding the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, announced in August, Feuerberg said it could force the premature closure of a significant number of the nation's baseload power plants before equivalent generation facilities are put in place. He said this rule could put the electric grid's reliability at risk and raise electric rates.
