ORCAS POWER AND LIGHT COOPERATIVE

Related pages

OPALCO members meet on Yakima

County hooks up to OPALCO fiber network

posted 10/19/05
County commissioners approved connecting the Public Works Guard Street property to the Orcas Power and Light Cooperative Fiber Optic network. The building will be used for training county employees on the new EDEN accounting system.

Commissioner Bob Myhr, who is an OPALCO board member, made the motion to approve the connection. He didn't believe he had a conflict of interest in the matter. The motion passed passed unanimously.

OPALCO collecting
letters of intent

By Sharon Kivisto

posted 06/13/01
Will Orcas Power and Light Cooperative offer Open Access to its fiber optics network? The board of directors faces the go/no-go milestone next month. OPALCO General Manager Doug Bechtel explained the process during a joint meeting of the coop's board and the County Commissioners last week.

For $135,000, OPALCO purchased 12 fiber cables in the transmission line Bonneville is laying between Fidalgo Island and Lopez Island. The coop needs a fiber optic system for its own communication needs -- interoffice connectivity, voice and data, and real-time monitoring of its systems. It currently leases lines from the telephone company. "It's a reliability problem," Bechtel said. "We have to have a system we control."

With the fiber optic network, OPALCO will be able to monitor its submarine cables from both ends. Bechtel noted the submarine cable failure in 1991 cost $1.5 million. The cables are oil-filled. The cable that failed was laid on an underwater pinnacle and wore away because of tidal movement. With the new monitoring system any change in oil pressure would be noticed, and the cable could be examined and repaired before costly damage occurred.

Besides the cost of the fibers, the coop will pay $275,000 in one-time expenses and $541,000 in construction for the first year of the project. This would put fiber optic cable from Anacortes to the Lopez substation and to the Friday Harbor substation. The total cost of the network needed to meet OPALCO's needs is estimated at $2 million.

How far OPALCO goes beyond that will be decided this summer. OPALCO has verbal committments from Skagit Public Utility District and NoaNet which would enable the network to hook up to I-5 and Seattle.

OPALCO Fiber Optic Mission and Vision Statement

MISSION:
OPALCO shall provide a fiber optics network backbone from Anacortes to and within rural San Juan County.

VISION:

OPALCO's primary goal is to provide the fiber optics backbone along a major portion of OPALCO's existing transmission corridors in San Juan County.

OPALCO will install fiber optic cable to upgrade its telecommunications and interoffice voice and data communication systems to meet present and future transmission and distribution system operating needs.

The OPALCO Board of Directors may decide to authorize Open Access for excess fiber capacity, beyond what is needed for OPALCO's own use, if evidenced by letters of interest from OPALCO members, and supported by a feasible business model.

If Open Access is approved, OPALCO will provide intranet/internet connectivity through partnerships and/or alliances with other utilities.

A research firm is gathering information and letters of intent from public entities and wholesalers."We've been contacted by a high-level individual on Lopez who wants more than everyone else combined," Bechtel said. If the board decides open access is economically feasible, it will give permission to go ahead.

"This thing has a life of its own," he said. "There are raised expectations in the community. We have to make sure we're not driven by enthusiam."

A wrinkle in the already complicated picture, is a limitation OPALCO has because of its non-profit status. According to the IRS, OPALCO's income from electricity has to equal at least 85 percent of its total income. If it drops below that threshold, it becomes a taxable entity."That would be a deathknell for OPALCO," said Bechtel. He doesn't think the fiber optic program would put the coop in that position.

The coop does not plan to retail access to the fiber optic network.The last mile, the connection to the individual business or home would be someone else's responsibility.

OPALCO is working with the telephone company. According to Bechtel, the phone company said it plans to have DSL available to everyone in San Juan County by the end of this year. "They are pressing us for fibers," he said. "They need it to get off the island." He gave them a Dec. 1 date as his best estimate.

OPALCO to provide fiber-optic spine

By Matt Pranger

posted 11/00
Orcas Power & Light Cooperative is paving the way for communication express lanes in and out of the San Juan Islands. At a Nov. 16 meeting, the utility’s board unanimously agreed to start laying the "backbone" of a fiber-optic network. That decision could move the islands from the telecommunication snail trail to the high-tech interstate.

"Basically, we’re going to bring broadband communication to the islands," says Tom Small, OPALCO’s manager of technical services.

Broadband is a method of communication in which the signal is transmitted by being impressed on a higher frequency carrier. What that means to the less-technologically-inclined is: faster and more advanced communication, especially Internet connections, eventually will be possible here. Fiber optics -- a medium for carrying information from one point to another in the form of light. through fibers, or thin rods of glass -- provide some of greatest bandwidth, or information carrying capacity, currently available. If most metal-based telephone lines are a snail oozing along a twig-size path, then fiber optics are an over-length, extra-wide 18-wheeler roaring at 120 miles per hour down a 10-lane superhighway.

"The speed is going to be incredible," Small says. "This will allow medical clinics to bring X-rays through the fibers in the snap of your fingers"

Bonneville Power Administration plans to run a new electrical transmission line from Fidalgo Island to Lopez Island this summer. NoaNet, a non-profit consortium of rural utilities in Washington and Oregon, will have four optic fibers for Internet public access imbedded in that cable. OPALCO purchased an additional 12 fibers in the cable.

After the main fiber optic cables are in place, OPALCO will connect its system and then start allowing other organizations to link up. "We’re looking to build a backbone system that people can tie into," Small says.

Phone and cable television companies have been wiring cities with fiber optics for years. Private networks have also been installed by local governments, businesses, banks, colleges and other groups to exchange, store and process information. OPALCO originally planned to limit its fiber optic network to its offices, substations and submarine cable terminals, but decided to explore expanding its system last spring after a new state telecommunications bill was passed and signed last spring. That law, designed to foster economic development in rural areas, allows public utility districts to provide fiber-optic cable networks on the wholesale level.

OPALCO also investigated fiber-optic options in response to its members’ interest in the high-speed medium. Some members also want OPALCO "to foster competition and provide ‘open access’ to their telecommunication systems for customers and service providers."

San Juan County commissioners Rhea Miller, John Evans and Darcie Nielsen supported OPALCO’s joining NoaNet. "We cannot afford to have our island communities and businesses left behind in a ‘digital divide,’ either by lack of service or due to high costs," commissioners wrote in a Nov. 7 letter to OPALCO.

Schools, including Skagit Valley College, long for telecommunication service improvements. Fiber-optics make real-time video possible. Thus, students in a classroom in the San Juans could attend a class taught anywhere in the United States, or the world.

Businesses, particularly dot-com company owners and employees, are interested in the establishment of high-speed Internet connections in the islands. Some hope that interest will lead to year-round companies with living-wage jobs moving to or starting up in San Juan County. "Open access supports diverse cottage businesses called for by the vision statement in the Comprehensive Plan," according to county commissioners’ letter. "Improved Internet access for the islands helps bring us a bit closer as a community, creates opportunities for balancing the annual economic cycle without promoting uncontrolled growth, and provides avenues for citizens to more effectively engage their local government."

"There’s tremendous support for this," Small notes.

OPALCO board members decided paying for the fiber-optic system -- the cooperative plans to spend at least $350,000 next year -- should not come at the expense of the cooperative’s electricity division. "We don’t want to spend electric funds to subsidize the communications side," Small says. "It will be a stand-alone system. It has to carry its own weight."

In an effort to obtain grants to help pay for the fiber-optic project, OPALCO hired economic development consultant Richard Civille. The cooperatives board is also establishing an advisory panel to assist with its fiber-optic decisions.

After the fiber-optic cable is laid between the islands and the mainland, OPALCO plans to establish its own fiber-optic network between its offices, substations and submarine cable terminals. Then it will open access to others. "The phone company can hook into this," Small says of CenturyTel.

Organizations or individuals close to OPALCO’s offices and substations will be in position to benefit from fiber-optics lines before others. Small anticipates the phone company, schools, local government, medical centers and some businesses will be the first to lease space.

It might be several years before a complete fiber-optic system will be in place in the islands, though. OPALCO will not be running fiber-optic lines to residences. That extension, or "last mile," will be left to others, such as CenturyTel, Internet service providers or cable television companies.

Small hopes the islands communication utilities and companies can cooperate on a fiber-optic network. "We don’t want to duplicate facilities," Small says.

Any utility or business hoping to install fiber-optic cable is facing more than the cost of materials and installation: Demand is so high for fiber-optic cable there’s an 80-week waiting list. "We’re trying to borrow fiber from other utilities," Small says.

In spite of the barriers to overcome, many residents are thrilled the islands will be linked to the rest of the world via fiber-optic cable. "There’s a lot of energy out there," Small concludes.

SAN JUAN ISLANDER © 2008

news @sanjuanislander.com

ABOUT US | ADVERTISING INFO | CONTACT INFORMATION |