From
Verendrye Electric Cooperative website:
Verendrye has grown to serve over 12,300 meters in the six counties surrounding Minot, a 4,000 square mile area requiring 60,000 poles and 4,300 miles of line to do the job. We have 55 employees dedicated to serve our member/owners.
Update regarding this cooperative in the Minot Daily News (data points):
- hooking up new customers at an accelerated pace
- pace not expected to slow for some time
- the coop added about 1,000 customer accounts last year (2011) (not counting FEMA hookups; following flood)
- expects another additional 1,000 customer hookups this year
- one large customer: Enbridge
- Verendrye plans to double the size of its substation at Berthold where Enbridge's CBR facility is
- also serves Great Plains Energy Park in Minot
- new home construction
- five new hotels in Verendrye's territory under construction
- will be taking over operation of electrical distribution system at Minot AFB; DOD privatized the operation this past year; Verendrye got the 50-year contract, beginning June, 2011
- first time in Verendrye's history that they put cable in the ground in January
- Central Power Cooperative is building a $7 million substation outside of Minot to supply Verendry with additional bulk delivery transmission
- Central Power also putting in 17 miles of new transmission lines; $3 million price tag
Most amazing data point:
Verendrye, based in Velva, North Dakota, is doing all this with 59 full-term employees. I wonder how many federal employees were assigned to electrical distribution system at MAFB before it was privatized, and how many Verendrye will assign against that conract?
Actually this may be the more amazing data point:
Minot is not exactly in the center of the Bakken activity, and yet, one little utility is seeing all this activity, most of it due to Bakken oil activity, at least as far as I can tell.
