Welcome to Anza Electric Cooperative

News/Events

Riverside County's Emergency Management Department recently notified AEC that our members may seek reimbursement for expenses incurred during the Cranston Fire from the California Victim's Compensation Fund.

Click here for the application and instructions on filing.

Applications are also available in the AEC office.

Capital Credits

Capital Credits Are Being Returned In September 2018

Once again capital credits are being returned and will be reflected on September's bills.

This year AEC is returning $250,000.00 in capital credits to members. Since 1989 AEC has returned over $11 million.

Rural electric cooperatives, such as Anza Electric Cooperative, Inc. (AEC) operate differently than investor-owned utilities (IOU's). Electric cooperatives are not-for-profit entities, delivering electricity to their membership at the cost of service. IOU's, on the other hand, exist to make a profit, a part of which is distributed to investors in the form of dividends. These dividends are only available to those who invest in the utility. The remainder of the profit is retained by the IOU.

In the cooperative model, excess revenue that is left over at the end of the year must be returned to it's membership in the form of Capital Credits. The amount returned is in proportion to the member's electric bill. A member with high electric bills will earn more capital credits than a member with lower electric bills.

This year AEC is returning a portion of capital credits earned from 1998 through 2016.

Wildfire Awareness. Are you ready?

Devastating wildfires threaten California every year, and to ensure Californians are ready, California’s Governor proclaims the first full week of May as “Wildfire Awareness Week”.
CAL FIRE is reminding Californians that when it comes to wildfires, remember “Ready, Set, Go!”. Be Ready for a wildfire by maintaining 100 feet of Defensible Space and hardening your home with fire resistant building materials. Be Set for a wildfire by having a wildfire action plan in place so you know what to take and where to go if you are evacuated. Lastly, Go early when a wildfire approaches or you are asked to evacuate.

Homeowners looking for additional information on how to prepare themselves, their families and their homes for wildfire can visit www.ReadyForWildfire.org. The site offers tips for residents to make their homes more resistant to wildfires and to ensure that their families are ready to evacuate early and safely when a wildfire strikes.

AEC Ranked Second in Nation for Solar Deployment

Anza Electric Cooperative, Inc. (AEC) has been named as one of a select group of utilities that connected the most solar or the most energy storage to the grid in 2017, earning it a spot on the annual Top 10 utility industry lists compiled by the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA).

In survey results released April 25, AEC ranked No. 2 on the Utility Solar list, with 1455.5 watts-per-customer installed in 2017. The 2018 listings are the first time AEC has made SEPA’s Top 10.

Awards are given in four categories: Top 10 utilities for most new solar megawatts and most new watts per customer, and Top 10 utilities for most new storage megawatts and most watts per customer. The Top 10 winners in all categories were recognized at the organization’s flagship utility event, the SEPA Utility Conference, this year being held in Rancho Mirage.

The 11th annual survey collected figures from over 400 utilities across the country on solar, energy storage and demand response connected to the grid in 2017 and since 2007 for solar.

“We’re very excited to receive this recognition by SEPA,” said Kevin Short, AEC General Manager. “It’s an honor to be recognized for our efforts to bring renewable energy generation to our members, an achievement that we could not have accomplished without the tireless efforts of our Generation and Transmission partner, Arizona Electric Power Cooperative. Their work both here in California and in Arizona towards helping us meet our state mandated renewable goals has been critical to our success.”

Read more by clicking on the heading above.

Help us Help You - Financial Assistance Available

We all have times in our lives that we need a little help with the everyday issues that come up occasionally; the kind of issues that involve financial challenges.

As a member owned and controlled cooperative, one of our basic principles is “Concern for Community.” For Anza Electric, this simply means that we have a responsibility to do what we can to make the place that we all live a little better. When our members have financial challenges, we want to be able to help. Here are three programs available to do just that:

Smiles 4 Seniors

If you’re over 65 and meet certain income requirements, this non-profit program provides emergency assistance and safety net services to struggling low income seniors who would otherwise have nowhere to turn. Contact them at Smiles for Seniors Foundation P.O. Box 1113 Yucaipa Ca. 92399. (909)790-6671 or visit their website at www.smilesforseniorsfoundation.org

Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)

Administered by the Community Action Partnership of Riverside County, this federally funded program provides utility payment assistance and weatherization services to low income customers in Riverside County. Apply online at www.capriverside.org/program/utilityassistanceprogram

Cooperative Care Program

This program is truly what our Cooperative is all about- helping our Members. We started this program ourselves, looking for a way to provide a helping hand when and where it’s needed. Members are eligible for up to $300 assistance annually, and the Thimble Club administers the program. It’s funded through Operation Roundup®, which rounds up participants’ electric bills to the nearest dollar, and contributing the extra change to the program. Funding is also provided through escheated Capital Credit funds.

To get more information on this unique program, visit our website here: www.anzaelectric.org/content/assistance-utility

To sign up for Operation Round Up info, please visit:

www.anzaelectric.org/content/operation-round

Or, stop by the office or give us a call at (951)763-4333. We’re always glad to help.

Is there Life Support Equipment in your home?

Occasionally, it’s necessary to perform maintenance on our equipment and that sometimes involves temporarily disconnecting our members’ power.
The members most affected are those who are on life support. We maintain a list of those who depend on any type of life support system and we use
this list to notify these individuals of a planned outage.
If you or someone in your household is on life support please be sure and let us know.
Identification tags are also placed on meters to alert crews of the existence of a life support system.

Because power outages can’t always be controlled and the duration of the outage may be extensive, it’s important to maintain a sufficient
backup supply of oxygen or other medical equipment you may need during this time.

Late Payment FAQ

Is your account past due?

If your due date has passed or you have a payment arrangement you have not kept, contact the AEC office right away. In most cases, we can offer some additional payment time.

What will happen if I don’t pay by the due date?

The short answer is, your service will be disconnected. Disconnecting services for the non-payment is the last thing we want to do. That's why we encourage members to contact the AEC office.

If you receive a delinquent notice on your bill, you will need to respond to the date hi-lighted in the message and also listed in red at the bottom of the bill as the “Disconnect Date. ”

If you have already made a payment arrangement and find you can’t keep the date, be sure to contact the AEC office to see if new arrangements can be made. If no arrangement exists or an arrangement has been broken, a message will be sent to the phone number(s) we have on file letting you know to respond by a specific date and time to avoid disconnection.

Click Late Payment FAQ above to see more......

Operation Round Up

Rounding up your bill can make a difference - Operation Roundup

Your spare change alone may not make a big difference – however, when you combine that spare change with all of your neighbors, it can change lives.

With that concept in mind, Anza Electric Cooperative established Operation Roundup as a way for our 4,000 members to combine their spare change for the benefit of the communities in this area.

The program was set up with the goal of making a big difference with small change. By allowing AEC to round up your monthly electric bill to the next higher dollar amount each month, the extra pennies are contributed to the AEC Operation Roundup fund.

Operation Roundup was started by Palmetto Electric Cooperative, in South Carolina, in 1989. Since then over 278 electric cooperatives nationwide have chosen to adopt the program.

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An Open Letter to the Members of Anza Electric
I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your patience during the outage of October 17. Southern California Edison notified us last week that they had further repairs to accomplish on their system due to the Cranston fire, and wanted to let us know as far ahead of time as possible. As mentioned in our previous communications to everyone, these repairs required the use of heavy lift helicopters and could only be accomplished during daylight hours. The remainder of the job took significantly longer than anticipated, which often happens given the difficult and sometimes dangerous nature of our business. These types of repairs, done in challenging conditions over rugged terrain inaccessible by normal equipment, can surprise the most experienced crews and take much more time than estimated. I commend SCE and their contractors for a fine job well done.

I full understand and sympathize with the frustration we all feel at this year's outage record. However, I'd like to remind everyone that the Cranston fire was an arson caused event-please direct your frustration there, not at the men and women of Southern California Edison or Anza Electric Cooperative. These fine individuals work tirelessly to provide the highest possible level of service, around the clock all year long. I personally see that in action every single day and can attest to the dedication and effort that they all show in their work.

We will have outages in the future. You can be absolutely depend on that. You can also depend on us doing our best to make sure that these events are as limited in scope and duration as is humanly possible.

I'd like to invite any Member of the Cooperative that would like to discuss the outage with me to stop by the office for a cup of coffee. I'm happy to sit with you and talk about anything that's on your mind.

Thank you again for all the support and trust that you place in our Cooperative.

Kevin Short
General Manager
Anza Electric Cooperative, Inc.
951-763-4333