Benton PUD: Infrastructure and technology help achieve our mission during pandemic

Not even a global pandemic could keep Benton PUD from fulfilling our customer service mission in 2020. Although we closed our doors to the public for a period, our work never stopped. As energy sector “Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers” we proudly and successfully continued to keep the lights on while responding to requests to connect over 1,000 new electric services in our growing communities.

Thanks to our dedicated employees, strategic investments in technology and long tradition of comprehensive planning, we were well-positioned to meet the challenges of one of the most difficult periods in most of our lives.

As we look forward to 2021, and putting the pandemic behind us, Benton PUD will be celebrating our 75th anniversary. We are focused, optimistic and excited for the future. Our employees are grateful to be working for a business with such a long tradition of excellence in providing safe, reliable and affordable services, and we remain dedicated to doing our part to help preserve the health, safety and well-being of our customers and the communities we serve. 

In 2021, one of our strategic focuses will be to continue upgrading and improving our electricity and data systems to be sure we are ready to accommodate exciting economic development throughout our service territory and ensure we are striving to meet the “always on” expectation our customers have for their electric and broadband services.

As our communities grow, investments in infrastructure are a must. And we are happy to say, Benton PUD has risen to the challenge and is ready to accommodate rapid growth in Kennewick’s Southridge and Vista Field areas as well as increasing demand for services throughout our electric and fiber-optic systems.

Additionally, we recently completed an upgrade to our automated metering system, which will enable improved resolution of electricity consumption data available on our Smart Hub app. Customer access to timely and easy-to-read information on their mobile devices provides convenient access to billing and payment options. It also helps customers observe their usage patterns and find ways to save money on their power bills.

Benton PUD continues to invest in capital projects to improve the redundancy and resiliency of our electricity delivery systems. Most notably, engineering efforts are underway, and construction is expected to begin in 2021 on a new transmission line to provide redundant regional power grid interconnections to the East Kennewick (Finley) area as well as irrigated agriculture and farm customers in southeast Benton County.

We are also planning to continue our investments in automation technologies to optimize the use of our electric system equipment and power lines through improved analysis, planning and operations strategies. By receiving widespread and timely data from the field, we can better understand the current state of our electric system and even implement predictive analytics techniques to detect problems before they result in customer outages or other service quality issues.

Finally, while investments in infrastructure and technology are a big part of Benton PUD achieving our mission, it is critically important that we maintain and grow our access to reliable, environmentally responsible and least-cost power. This means preserving contractual rights to hydro and nuclear energy, which are the foundation of our over 90% clean power supply portfolio while also planning to acquire new resources for what we hope will continue to be a prosperous and livable Benton County and greater Tri-Cities region.

Through the good and bad, Benton PUD is honored and proud to be a trusted energy partner for our customers and neighboring communities.

This story was originally published April 30, 2021 at 12:09 AM with the headline "Benton PUD: Infrastructure and technology help achieve our mission during pandemic."