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So far, the response to the OPALCOGRAMs and the mailing that was sent to every member has been very good. I hope that the postcards and calls keep coming in. We are still a long way away from our goal of a thousand signups for the first year. Due to some recent personnel shuffling at OPALCO, we are short one person in our Load Management group, so we may not be able to get back to you as soon as we had originally hoped. We should be caught up within a week or two, however, and you will hear from us soon. On a different topic, we continue to work with BPA to obtain a firm commitment to upgrade the submarine cable so that they will be able to meet our loads comfortably in the future. At our board meeting last Thursday, we agreed with Bonneville's plan to install a second 115,000 volt submarine cable from Anacortes to Lopez in the year 2002. This cable will have the capacity to meet our needs until at least 2040. Over the next several weeks, we will be reducing this technical agreement into a formal plan for the cables. It is a major accomplishment to get Bonneville to commit to the technical parameters associated with the new cable. This also assures us that our efforts over the next five to six years in load management will accomplish our initial goal, which is to have two full capacity cables between Anacortes and Lopez while at the same time minimizing BPA's cost by deferring the investment for several years. In addition, operation of our Load Management System is going to enable OPALCO to reduce the load that we place on the Bonneville power system. As the OPALCO electrical load grows and the same thing happens around the rest of the Northwest, at some point this is going to help Bonneville and others to significantly defer the investments in new generating facilities that would have to be made otherwise. Although load management systems have been in operation in other areas of the country for many years, this is one of the first aggressive load management programs in the Pacific Northwest. For years, our low cost of power has made load management systems not cost effective. Several other utilities are looking closely at what we are doing to see how effective we are in gaining member acceptance of our program. If we are successful here, the same program may be repeated over and over again throughout the Northwest. By connecting your house up to our load management system, you may encourage five or ten others in the Northwest to do the same thing. If you haven't signed up for load management yet, do it now. Call us, write us, e-mail us - whatever it takes - but, please, get your name on our list. Doug Bechtel
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