A group of innovative High Country residents discovered a way for homeowners to save on their utility bills while contributing to energy-efficient projects locally.
Turner Valley resident Murray Knowler is among the masterminds behind the Foothills Energy Co-operative, formed last year to market natural gas and electricity through Calgary supplier UtilityNet at a lower cost than many large corporations.
“We are definitely competitive,” he said. “When we set the prices we said, ‘Let’s make sure we are lower than anybody.’ ATCO offered free service for a month with a contract – we can’t compete with that.”
When Knowler signed up for the service last fall he was initially paying eight cents per kilowatt hour with a large provider. With the co-op’s floating rate he said he paid 2.5 cents a kilowatt hour in November and 3.7 cents in December.
Revenue generated from sales go into a community fund to be spent on conservation and sustainability initiatives as decided and voted on by those paying for the service, said Knowler.
“Nobody makes any money within the co-op,” he said, adding it’s a non-profit organization.
“We are not asking anyone for anything other than what they are spending already. It’s just money that goes into the community.”
Knowler said a board of directors was established consisting of six people, himself included, who live in the Diamond Valley area.
The board created a community fund, which is monitored and driven by members who propose, and later vote on, potential projects such as solar panels on community buildings, household energy audits, construction alternatives and education projects on conservation and sustainability.
“Anybody within the co-op can come up with an idea and present it to the board,” he said. “When we get bigger we will probably have a committee that looks after it.”
UtilityNet provides the electricity and natural gas and looks after the billing and servicing component while the board of directors is responsible for looking for customers and overseeing the community fund, said Knowler.
The co-operative has approximately 30 customers in the Turner Valley and Black Diamond area.
Customer and one of the board of directors Graham Lettner, of Black Diamond, said the co-op is getting a positive response, it’s just going to be a matter of time before it grows.
Lettner signed up with the service shortly after it was available in early November.
“I felt strongly that I better get on board quickly after we got started,” he said. “My rate didn’t change, but instead of them getting my money the Black Diamond area is getting my money.”
Lettner was involved with initial discussions amongst a group of residents about looking at alternative energy when a friend told him about Olds’ Mountain View Power Service.
The non-profit organization is owned by the Olds Institute for Community & Regional Development, and all profits go into the community.
“It was a little bit if they can do it sure we can pull this off and once we get this going the community gets an ongoing benefit to do things it otherwise wouldn’t have any money to do,” Lettner said. “It seemed like a positive thing to do for the community.”
Knowler said UtilityNet has 25 other affiliated marketers in Alberta - Olds being among them.
In speaking with the regional development’s interim executive director Mitch Thompson late last year, Knowler learned that about 1,000 households are getting power and 460 are getting natural gas from the organization, with the expectation that $155,000 will be raised this year.
While Knowler sees great potential for the Foothills Energy Co-op, he said it wasn’t the group’s first idea.
“We started off thinking we should pursue some sort of alternative energy project,” he said. “We found out it’s really not that viable to start up a wind farm or solar. The payback is a long time.”
After learning about Mountain View Power, the group discussed operating at a break-even basis.
“We thought we could make it really cheap so everybody could save money,” he said. “Then we thought as long as we are the same or less than others we could really use this money to do something constructive.”
For more information about the Foothills Energy Co-op go to www.foothillsenergycoop.ca or contact Knowler at 403-933-7040 or 403-830-1492 or Lettner at 587-718-0059.
