At Tuesday’s meeting of the City of Marshfield Common Council, Marshfield Utilities (MU) presented on the value of the utility to the community. As a municipal utility, MU is not a private company designed to make profit, but rather to be a stakeholder-focused organization that provides reliable and safe services to customers while also providing value and enhancing quality of life in the community.
“We take this mission seriously and wanted to share a bit more about the value the utility provides to our customers,” said Nicholas Kumm, MU General Manager.
In a video presentation, MU highlighted that it is a local company that provides local support, no matter the request – from a new service to updating existing facilities, or billing inquiries, local staff is available to handle requests and meetings.
Approximately 10% of the energy sold to customers by MU is produced from renewable sources, and MU has secured $550,000 from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to support a proactive approach to customer lead service replacement which will help customers save money and have safer water.
In the last three years, there have been 92 private side lead services removed totaling $270,207 in grant reimbursements. Of those, 76 required MU to replace the lead on the utility portion. MU has spent $480,367 on replacing those portions. Additionally, at least 65 lead services have been replaced during projects, main breaks, and service leaks.
From 2011 through 2019 Marshfield Utilities customers have contributed $957,000 through their electric bill to support “Focus on Energy” programs. In turn, Marshfield Utilities customers have received approximately $2.7 million through “Focus on Energy” programs.
“Additionally, thousands of customers have benefited from residential energy and water audits or commercial assessments,” said Melissa Barnes, HR. “MU continually provides a lower frequency of outages to customers than that of other local Electric Utilities.”
She highlighted that MU is recognized nationally for reliability and response times (day or night, weekday or weekend). The overall length of outages for Marshfield Utilities’ customers are lower than compared to other local Electric Utilities.
American Public Power Association has recognized MU for achieving exceptional electric reliability in 2019.
“Marshfield Utilities is also proud to have received the Reliable Public Power Provider or RP3 designation from APPA,” said Barnes. “The designation means that Marshfield Utilities follows best practices in reliability, safety, workforce development, and system improvement.”
When compared to the Wisconsin state average as estimated by a reliability calculator, Marshfield Utilities’ customers saved about $3.5 million in 2016, $1.4 million In 2017, and $2.65 million in 2018 in interruption costs.
MU customers also benefit from lower rates.
• Marshfield Utilities Rates an average household would pay $709 annually
• IOU Rates an average household would pay $1,054 annually
• This is a 33% Savings Annually which means our customers in total pay $3,988,890 less.
MU also contributes back to the community through the PILOT program.
“The combined total represents $229,934 for the dividend payment that goes toward economic development and our PILOT or payment in lieu of tax of $1,890,856.59,” said Barnes. “This year’s total was $2,120,790.59 combined. This money is given back to the City of Marshfield to enhance our community – something unique to municipally-owned utilities versus privately owned utilities.”
To learn more, visit www.marshfieldutilities.org
Author: News Desk
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