Manager’s Message

Manager's Message

Manager’s Message – February 2024

We Power Your Life

Annie Terracciano headshotMost of us use electricity—either directly or indirectly— around the clock. Because it is so abundant and available with the simple flip of a switch, it is easy to take for granted.

The typical U.S. household uses more air conditioning, heating, appliances, and consumer electronics than ever before, according to the Energy Information Administration. The average home also contains 10 or more internet-connected devices.

Considering everything that is powered by electricity, it’s no wonder we occasionally might wince at our monthly bills. But keep in mind, it is no longer just the light bill. The energy that first brought light to our homes now covers so much more. Electricity powers our quality of life, including the infrastructure of the home and virtually everything in it: appliances, water heaters, HVAC systems, smartphones, computers, TVs, Wi-Fi routers, and more.

Today, there is more demand for electricity than ever. At home, in schools and businesses, and in communal sectors such as transportation, the need for electricity is growing.

Our electricity use tends to increase in winter months when cold temperatures and early sunsets push us indoors.

Typically, when demand goes up, so does cost. That is the case with most goods and services, such as vehicles or even your favorite specialty coffee. During the past 12 months, the cost of housing increased by 6.2%, transportation increased by 9.7% and food increased by 2.7%. Nationally, the cost of electricity increased by 3.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Fortunately, Northern Lights’ rates have been stable. In fact, NLI hasn’t had a rate increase in more than six years.

Considering all the ways we depend on electricity, it remains a great value. The next time you are enjoying your favorite podcast, TV series or movie, consider the value of electricity and how it enhances your quality of life.

We care about you, and the members we serve, and understand electricity is more than a commodity. It is a necessity. That’s why Northern Lights will continue working hard to power your life with clean electricity—safely, reliably, and affordably.

Annie Terracciano
General Manager

Manager's Message

Manager’s Message – January 2024

No Rate Increase for 2024

Annie Terracciano headshotHappy New Year! Now that winter is in full swing, I hope you are doing your best to enjoy what our area has to offer for winter activities. Whether it’s skiing, ice fishing, sledding or just playing in the snow with your children, I hope you take pleasure in this winter season.

I am pleased to report there will not be an electric rate increase for 2024.

The Northern Lights Board of Directors and employees have worked diligently to create a 2024 budget that will not require an increase in rates. Like all industries, NLI has faced increased costs related to inflation in almost all aspects of our business, but with prudent planning and budgeting, we have been able to maintain a healthy financial standing.

As we move forward in this era of increasing energy costs, we remain determined to keep your rates stable, while maintaining our financial strength. Northern Lights is committed to providing safe, reliable service at an affordable price.

I wish you all the best in the new year!

Annie Terracciano
General Manager

Manager's Message

Manager’s Message – December 2023

NLI Returns More Than $2 Million to Co-op Members

Happy Holidays from all of us at Northern Lights!

Annie Terracciano headshotI am happy to announce the board of directors has authorized a total of $2,280,000 of capital credits from 1998, 1999 and 2000 to be returned to our members. This means that if you were a member of Northern Lights in those years, you will receive a check in the mail this December. Your check amount is determined by the amount of energy you used during those years.

We work hard to serve our members by providing safe, reliable and affordable electricity. As a not-for-profit cooperative, NLI is owned by its members. One benefit of being a member-owned cooperative is money left over at the end of the year is returned to the members in the form of dividend checks in the future. Meanwhile, the funds are used to improve and maintain our infrastructure, ensuring reliable service, offsetting the need to borrow money, and helping us keep rates low.

Capital credits from years past that go unclaimed are held by the cooperative. A list of all members with unclaimed capital credit distributions is available on our website at the NLI website. If you find your name on the list, call us at (208) 263-5141.

As another option, you can always donate your capital credit checks to the Northern Lights Community Trust, which distributes funds to local charities in our service areas. See the insert enclosed with your check for instructions on how to do this.

Feel free to contact our office if you have any questions.

All of us at NLI wish you a safe and happy holiday. We hope you enjoy the time with family and cherish the holiday spirit.

Merry Christmas!

Annie Terracciano
General Manager

Manager's Message

Manager’s Message – November 2023

Honor & Reflection

Annie Terracciano headshotNovember provides us with 2 significant opportunities to reflect: Thanksgiving and Veterans Day.

On November 23, Thanksgiving Day, many of us will pause and give thanks with loved ones. We will take time to enjoy food with family, friends and even strangers. Some of us will gather to give our time to serve others.

Thanksgiving provides many opportunities to spend a day with one another in an intentional way.

Another opportunity to reflect and give thanks is November 11 each year. Our country would not have the freedom it does without the sacrifice of our veterans. My 1st priority is to pause and say thank you to each of our members who have given their time to serve and sacrifice for our country. At Northern Lights, we appreciate your patriotism, love for our country and the sacrifices you made — or make — for the common good.

We also appreciate the sacrifice of each family that has a loved one who has served, or is currently serving, in our armed forces. You also are making a huge sacrifice with the absence of your loved one. We know many will acknowledge both holidays while service members are away.

I am proud of our Northern Lights family that has provided service to our country. I want to thank Northern Lights’ Directors Jim Woodward and Jill Vandegrift and Northern Lights’ linemen Ryan Streeter and Cody Bradshaw for their service.

In closing, while you take the time to think about the things you are thankful for, I want to thank you, our members who support public power.

Enjoy the Thanksgiving season!

Annie Terracciano
General Manager

Manager's Message

Manager’s Message – October 2023

Celebrating National Co-op Month

Annie Terracciano headshotOctober is the month to celebrate the benefits cooperatives bring to our communities. Whether a cooperative’s focus is food, child care, insurance, electricity or some other service, we all exist to help serve a need in the communities we live in.

What makes cooperatives unique is we are not-for-profit, democratically controlled and member owned. The cooperative business model is about meeting the needs of the people, not about maximizing profits. In the United States, more than 900 electric co-ops serve an estimated 42 million people. Northern Lights has more than 19,000 members and more than 2,900 miles of distribution lines serving members in Northern Idaho, Eastern Washington and Western Montana.

NLI is overseen by a 7-member board of directors, each elected by the members of the district they represent. Our power comes from the Bonneville Power Administration and our own dam on a tributary of the Kootenai River. NLI distributes this power to each of its members’ homes and businesses.

One way NLI serves its community is through Operation Roundup. Members can choose to round up their monthly energy bills to the nearest dollar to help families in need of assistance. Members can also choose to donate to the Helping Hand program, which is designed to support struggling members with their power bills, or Project Share, which provides home heating assistance. If you would like to participate in any of these programs, please contact us to sign up.

Summer has come to an end, the leaves are changing, and autumn is upon us. Before we know it, those princesses, superheroes, ghosts and goblins will knock on our doors, hoping for a treat!

Happy Halloween!

Annie Terracciano
General Manager

Manager's Message

Manager’s Message – September 2023

Annie Terracciano headshotLabor Day is Monday, September 4. While we typically relax with family and friends at parties and backyard barbecues, the holiday’s history was not so relaxing.

The recognition of our nation’s workforce was created by the labor movement in the 19th century. Labor Day became a federal holiday when it was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland on June 28, 1894. The purpose of the holiday was to pay tribute to the achievements of all American workers and their contributions to the success of our great nation.

2023 has been incredibly busy for Northern Lights employees. I would like to thank the Northern Lights workforce for their hard work and contributions to the success of your rural electric cooperative. Northern Lights employees—and many of you—will take this day off work to celebrate this important holiday.

For any business owners out there, giving your workers a day off is a nice way to say thank you and acknowledge the hard work they put in every day. Of course, the entire American workforce can’t take the day off. So whether you and your crews are still working, or if your power goes out and our lineworkers must restore it — or if you need to run to the grocery store for another bag of buns — let’s make sure to say thank you and honor workers’ dedication. This Labor Day, let’s go the extra mile to make sure American workers know how vital they are to the community and to the country.

Remember, Labor Day isn’t just another day off — it’s a deeply rooted historical holiday honoring American workers and everything they have done to make our lives better.

Thank you to all the American workers. Happy Labor Day!

Annie Terracciano
General Manager

Manager's Message

Manager’s Message – August 2023

Annie Terracciano headshotSummer is in full swing, bringing lazy days at the lake, outdoor activities and backyard barbecues.

To celebrate the summer season with our members, Northern Lights, Inc. (NLI) is having an ice cream social Monday, August 28, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Samuels Store, 486260 Highway 95, Sandpoint. Everyone is invited to enjoy hot dogs and ice cream and learn about fire safety and meet your board of directors and NLI employees.

Wildfire Mitigation Efforts

In recent years, wildfires have emerged as a growing public safety concern throughout the West. Although wildfires have many causes—from lightning to unattended campfire sparks—electric utilities are doing their part to help keep communities safe.

Due to the extreme fire danger in our region, the Bonneville Power Administration, our generation and transmission provider, has changed how it operates during red- flag weather warnings. When specific weather conditions exist—high winds, high temperatures and low humidity, for example—BPA may choose to temporarily shut off power to reduce the chance of the power lines starting fires.

If BPA does enact Public Safety Power Shutoffs in our area, NLI members in the Priest River and Priest Lake areas will be affected. Other areas may briefly be affected during switching operations. Members will be notified, if possible. We will do everything we can to restore power as quickly as possible.

With our dry conditions, keeping vegetation away from the power lines continues to be a priority for NLI. We are constantly trimming trees and removing vegetation in our utility easements to remove fuel for fires and also keep trees and limbs from coming into contact with our lines to reduce fire risk.

NLI continues to work closely with BPA to monitor weather conditions and ensure we are taking all possible precautions to avoid wildfire while maintaining our commitment to provide reliable electricity.

Enjoy the August weather and be safe. When we work together, we can keep the lights on and reduce our fire danger.

Annie Terracciano
General Manager 

Manager's Message

Manager’s Message – July 2023

Annie Terracciano headshotSummer is finally here! It is my favorite season and the time to get out on the lake to fish, water ski or enjoy a leisurely boat ride in the sun. If you take your boat out of the state, be careful before returning. The invasive quagga and zebra mussels are looking to hitchhike a ride to our pristine Idaho and Montana waterways.

These invasive mussels wreak havoc wherever they call home. They deplete the nutrients in the water and upset the ecosystem. They also colonize hulls of boats, recreational equipment, irrigation equipment and hydroelectric power plant equipment. Once they move in, they are a permanent house guest.

How do you go about keeping those pesky creatures from moving in? Clean. Drain. Dry. Clean any visible mud, plants or animals from your boat. Drain all water from the motor, bilge, livewell and other water-containing devices. Dry all areas of your boat and equipment.

If you are commercially hauling watercraft to Washington, Oregon, Idaho or Montana, you need to Call Before You Haul at (844) 311-4873 to provide your hauling information and avoid costly delivery delays. This also ensures you are not violating state or federal laws regarding the unlawful transport of invasive species.

To protect our waterways, the state has a watercraft inspection station program focused on inspecting boats from affected states as they come across the state line. Inspections are free, but the cost of mussels is not. According to the Idaho Department of Agriculture, the estimated cost to Idaho alone would be $100 million annually if attempts fail to prevent an infestation. Inspection stations in Idaho have already intercepted 13 boats in 2023 carrying the invasive mussels.

I hope you are enjoying your summer in the beautiful Inland Northwest! And remember: Clean. Drain. Dry.

Annie Terracciano
General Manager 

Manager's Message

NLI Audit and Don Roos’ Retirement

Audit Results

Annie Terracciano headshotThe NLI Board of Directors recently received the co-op’s 2022 audit report from Moss Adams LLP. Each year, the auditors travel from Portland, Oregon, to our Sagle headquarters, where they spend a week conducting a thorough search of our accounting records. I am pleased to announce we received a perfectly clean audit with no adjustments.

It is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of our staff to achieve this high level of financial performance, record keeping, and working with our auditors to make sure we are meeting all our obligations, standards and rules. We have established a culture of fiscal accountability and responsibility. This audit lets us know we have successfully met the standards we have worked diligently to implement.

A Job Well Done

I would like to take a moment to highlight one of our valued journeymen linemen who hung up his tool belt earlier this year for the last time.

Don Roos retired from NLI after 32 years of service to the cooperative. He joined NLI in 1991, dedicating his career to our community and service territory working on operations, maintenance and building new underground and overhead systems. Don was a devoted lineman, always going above and beyond the call of duty no matter the weather, to keep your lights on.

Thank you for your dedication and years of service, Don. Enjoy the next chapter of your life—you deserve it!

Annie Terracciano
General Manager

Manager's Message

Manager’s Message – May 2023

Annual Meeting and Electrical Safety

Annie Terracciano headshotIt was great to see many of you at this year’s annual meeting!
A brief summary of the annual meeting is on pages 4 and 5.
This year, the board seats for Districts 1, 5 and 7 were up for election. Current directors for District 1, Mike Dolan; and District 5, Kennon McClintock; ran unopposed and were duly reelected to four-year terms. The District 7 board seat was contested, and Director Jim Woodward was reelected to another four-year term. Congratulations to Mike, Kennon and Jim!

National Electrical Safety Month

May is National Electrical Safety Month. We want to keep electrical safety in the forefront, not only this month but throughout the year. Of all the hazards we face in daily life at home, at school and on the job, there is perhaps none quite as unforgiving as electricity. You won’t see it coming, and when it strikes, it strikes hard—killing or disabling a person, or destroying property.

Safety is an essential practice at NLI. Each month, our staff engages in safety training and a safety meeting. We check the safety of our equipment and discuss ways to make our work environment safer. In our line of work, it really is the difference between life and death. From our co-op crews to you, the members we serve, we recognize everyone has a part to play in prioritizing safety.

According to the Electrical Safety Foundation International, thousands of people
in the United States are critically injured or electrocuted as a result of electrical fires and accidents in their homes. Many of these accidents are preventable. Electricity is a necessity, and it powers our daily lives. But we know firsthand how dangerous electricity can be because we work with it 365 days a year.

Member safety is a priority at NLI. That’s why you see us hosting safety demonstrations at community events and in schools throughout the year to demonstrate the dangers of electricity. We discuss emergency scenarios, such as what to do in a car accident involving a utility pole and downed power lines. We caution students on the dangers of padmounted transformers and overloading circuits with too many electronic devices.

NLI is dedicated to educating and caring for our employees, members and communities during National Electrical Safety Month in May, as well as every month of the year.

Annie Terracciano
General ManagerÂ