NOVEC Tells Legislators Power Demands Continue to Climb

Contact: Priscilla Knight, 703-392-1580, pknight@novec.com

NORTHERN VIRGINIA—Stan Feuerberg, president and CEO of the Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative, told Northern Virginia legislators on December 4, 2007 that electricity demands from the Co-op's customers have increased 40 percent since 2001. Feuerberg spoke at a breakfast meeting at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Manassas, Virginia.

Feuerberg reminded legislators that reliable power is important to the economy in the Northern Virginia region. He said demographic surveys indicate that NOVEC's customers are among the highest in per capita income and education level of any in the country.  A high percentage of them use computers and other electronic equipment at work and in their homes. Therefore, reliable electric energy is an expectation that must be satisfied.

Because NOVEC crews must travel on the area's busy roads to restore power when outages occur, Feuerberg asked legislators to pass legislation in 2008 to reduce traffic congestion and improve roads. "To keep the economy moving forward, we need to keep the power flowing," Feuerberg commented.  

Despite increasing demand, Feuerberg told legislators NOVEC has kept power flowing to its customers 99.99 percent of the time, and has the shortest average outage time and the highest reliability record of any electricity utility in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.  "For the past nine years," said Feuerberg, "NOVEC has been unsurpassed."  Feuerberg credited NOVEC's state-of-the-art technology and highly-trained employees.  He said, "Yesterday, with wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour, NOVEC kept the power on." 

The Co-op president and CEO said increasing wholesale power costs concern NOVEC and it customers: "Six years ago, we spent less than 65 percent of our expenditures on the purchase of energy that we, in turn, deliver to our customers. In 2007, we spent 80 percent. This skyrocketing cost is not acceptable to us and we continue to seek ways to lower our customers' bills."

NOVEC will celebrate its 25th year of serving Northern Virginia on January 1, 2008.  Feuerberg said, "When the two smaller cooperatives consolidated and formed NOVEC in 1983 they served 38,000 customers. Today, NOVEC serves almost 140,000 customers and power demand is growing rapidly." 

Feuerberg said, "Even though demand and power costs continue to climb, NOVEC has not raised the rates it charges for its distribution service since 1991. Only increases in fuel-related generation expenses have been passed through to our customers. Equally important, we returned more than $42 million this year to our customers through our Cash Back program, because of our cost-saving measures and efficient operations."

Senator Mark Herring and Delegates Bob Marshall, Dave Albo, David Marsden and Jackson Miller attended the meeting.  Legislative aides represented Senators Charles Colgan, Janet Howell, Toddy Puller, and Senator-elect George Barker, and Delegates Chuck Caputo, Jeff Frederick, and Tom Rust.