IT’S ABOUT OUR TOWN: Here’s why three utilities provide electric service to the town

Citizens often ask why the town of Culpeper is in the business of providing electric service to some town residents when Dominion Virginia Power and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative also serve a portion of the town.

The answer is simple. In 1933, the town wanted to have local control of rates and provide better service than was available at the time, and voters approved a referendum to establish their own power plant and distribution system.

In October 1934, the town began providing electricity to the town, which was smaller than it is today. When the town expanded its borders in the 1960s, Virginia Electric and Power and REC were already in place and serving customers, as approved by the State Corporation Commission.

With the boundary adjustment, the town acquired the right to serve any new electric customers within the new boundaries, thus creating the situation with three providers.

From its fledgling beginnings 75 years ago, the town’s Light and Power Department has grown to 15 employees, operating 11 vehicles, with a budget of $10.9 million serving 4,070 residential and 858 commercial customers.

Since the department’s inception, the Town’s goal was to provide safe and reliable electric service at an affordable price. The Town also wanted to be able to quickly respond to after hour’s service requests, generally within 30 minutes. The department can do that because it covers a much smaller geographic area than other electric providers and personnel and equipment are locally available.

In order to be able to offer affordable electric rates to town customers, the town of Culpeper joined in 1989 with six other localities to create the Virginia Municipal Electric Association.

VMEA negotiated a wholesale purchase of electricity for its member communities from Dominion Virginia Power, which the member communities then distribute to their customers through their own lines.

It is important to remember that no matter who provides the electricity to your home or business — whether it is the town, REC or Dominion itself — all the providers actually receive the power from Dominion through their transmission lines.

As we are dependent upon Dominion to generate and send the power to us, when problems develop in their transmission system, the town must wait until Dominion restores power. This situation, which has resulted in extended power outages in town, often frustrating and upseting town customers, occurred three times in 2008.

To address this issue, and at the town’s urging, Dominion recently upgraded its transmission lines that serve the town to reduce the likelihood of major and prolonged power outages caused by transmission line failures.

Next time, I will discuss the town’s electric generation capabilities and the way we purchase power distributed to our customers.