Related News
Related News
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EWEB offering additional energy efficiency supplement to qualified customers
Current EWEB residential electric customers may qualify to double their energy efficiency rebates with a limited time supplement.
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EWEB opens application for 2024 Electric Mobility Community Grants
Grant awards of up to $30,000 to cover costs associated with electric mobility projects.
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Upgrades to Eugene's downtown electric network continue
You may have noticed construction this week on the corner of 7th and Pearl Street. That’s because crews replaced a corroded, aging vault with an innovative, new Voltek vault. The Voltek design allows for the new infrastructure to be built inside of the existing aging vault. We’re able to install the new vault while the cables are still energized, minimizing disruption to customers and traffic while cutting construction time in half.
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The Big Freeze 2024: After Action Report
Winter 2024 was one for the records books, and we'll look back on it for years to come and say, "That was a doozy!" The back-to-back January Ice Storms caused widespread damage to EWEB’s service territory, affecting approximately 38,000 customers. Preliminary repair costs were over $8 million, and additional repairs to transmission lines are still required.
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Fixing the Unseen: Water Pipeline Replacement in Unincorporated Eugene
Learn more about EWEB's methods for monitoring and replacing aged water pipelines.
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New tanks come online as EWEB modernizes water system
New drinking water storage tanks are one of several investments to ensure that EWEB can meet critical community needs in the event of an earthquake.
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Celebrate Earth Month by taking charge of your home's energy use
This Earth Month, learn how you can reduce your energy usage to help protect our planet and reduce carbon emissions.
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Spring Cleaning? How about Spring Emergency Preparedness!
Spring is officially here and that means the plants are blooming, the sun is (sometimes) shining, and the grass is green! We've had our fair share of severe weather already, but spring weather is notoriously unpredictable. While you're in the midst of spring cleaning and garden care, consider completing these emergency preparedness tasks.
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EWEB General Manager Delivers 2024 State of the Utility
General Manager Frank Lawson delivered his address at the March 5 public Board of Commissioners meeting
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State of the McKenzie Watershed
EWEB’s Drinking Water Source Protection (DWSP) team says the McKenzie River continues to be an excellent source for drinking water.
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Nine days without power: My ice storm story as an EWEB customer and employee
While beautiful and peaceful, buying a home on the edge of the forest and surrounded by trees has its tradeoffs. Moving “upriver,” I knew there would be more threats to prepare for, including Mother Nature’s seasonal surprises.
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EWEB achieves power restoration milestone over the weekend
Crews have so far restored power for 92% of customers who originally lost power at the height of the ice storm.
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Reenergized McKenzie River Valley transmission lines allow EWEB crews to restore power upriver
On Friday, a majority of EWEB crews tackled power restoration efforts upriver, after federally managed transmission lines were reenergized Thursday.
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EWEB estimates one week to complete power system restoration
On Wednesday, EWEB crews restored power for about 10,000 customers by repairing large equipment first.
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Second round of ice and ensuing thaw prompt mass power outages
On Wednesday, all EWEB crews, who have been working nonstop since Saturday, traversed EWEB’s service territory assessing the damage and restoring transmission lines and main power feeders.
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Revisiting EWEB’s Climate Policies during COP26
November 01, 2021
If the coronavirus pandemic defined the year 2020, climate change would summarize 2021. We've heard stories of devastation from across the globe, including record floods, landslides, hurricanes, and storms. Here in Oregon, we've endured massive wildfires, deadly heat waves, and extreme droughts.
Over the next two weeks, leaders from around the world will meet at the United Nation's 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, to commit to reducing the catastrophic effects of climate change.
COP26 is an important follow-up to the 2015 Paris Agreement, which outlines a plan to prevent the planet from warming more than 1.5oC. At COP26, each nation will present its unique strategies to accomplish the promises made in the Paris Agreement.
It's being called "the world's best last chance to get runaway climate change under control."
The United States, the State of Oregon, and the City of Eugene each have defined their own climate goals, as well. As a public utility, EWEB represents the interests of our community, and works in partnerships with the City of Eugene, the University of Oregon, local nonprofit organizations and businesses, and our customers - our constituents - to reduce our community's carbon footprint, conserve energy, and manage costs of service.
In fact, EWEB's five elected commissioners approved a Climate Change Policy for EWEB in 2018. In it, the Board recognizes that climate change presents ongoing environmental, economic, and social risk to EWEB, our customers, our community, and the world. There are four areas in which EWEB recognizes its role in combating climate change, and one acknowledging the climate's impacts on EWEB business:
- Power Generation: The Board is committed to supporting an electric power portfolio utilizing low-carbon, renewable resources to the extent possible and practical without impacting safety or reliability.
- Status: Presently, EWEB's electricity resource mix is approximately 90% carbon free, with a 5-year average carbon intensity of 0.025 MTCO2e/MWh
- Carbon Measures: The Board authorizes, delegates, and directs the General Manager to participate in local, state, and regional efforts to encourage, develop and enact measures to mitigate carbon emissions in the energy sector that contribute to climate change.
- Status: Over the past five years, EWEB has been one of the few public utilities voicing support for carbon and climate legislation, including State cap and trade legislation, residential Energy Tax Credit (RETC) reauthorization, wildfire mitigation standards and workshops, as well as an active participant on the Mayor's Climate Recovery Ordinance Ad Hoc Work Group and City of Eugene Climate Collaborative Partners group.
- EWEB Operations: The Board further authorizes, delegates, and directs the General Manager to continue efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from EWEB's operations through the use of the Triple Bottom Line analytical framework, including impacts on the environment and climate.
- Status: Between 2009 and 2019, EWEB's cumulative operations-based emissions have decreased by 4,457 metric tons of MTCO2e, or 39%, using location-based accounting for electricity. This decrease is primarily due to a 49% reduction in fossil fuel fleet emissions and a 33% reduction in electricity-based emissions. Year 2020 operational emissions will be reported in December.
- Customer Decarbonization: The Board further authorizes, delegates, and directs the General Manager to assist customers with their carbon reductions through technical assistance and resources that support energy efficiency, alternative fuels, electric and water conservation, and smart electrification.
- Status: EWEB offers over 40 different GreenPowerTM, energy efficiency and conservation products/programs, including limited income and rental qualifying programs, electric vehicle charging and heat pump hot water heater incentives, along with commercial programs for lighting, refrigeration, compressors, and other applications. Since 2010, EWEB programs have saved at least 600,000 MWhs (estimated, data is being analyzed) of energy representing 175,000 metric tons of carbon emissions reduction (using regional electricity blend), averaging 15,900 MTCO2e/Year during that period.
- Impacts on EWEB: The Board directs the General Manager to evaluate and enact measures, as necessary and appropriate, to prepare for and minimize the effects of climate change that could impact EWEB's water and electric supply and infrastructure, damaging EWEB's resiliency and reliability.
- Status: EWEB has and continues to develop plans to enhance resiliency and response to disruptive events, including those impacted by climate change, most recently a Wildfire Mitigation Plan, 2020 Eugene-Springfield Area Multi-Jurisdictional Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan (Plan), and EWEB's Drinking Water Risk & Resiliency Assessment per the 2018 American Water Infrastructure Act.
Commissioners revisited EWEB's Climate Change Policy at the November 2021 Board Meeting.
As a community, we have made some inspiring progress towards cutting our emissions. EWEB has helped customers earn millions of dollars in rebates on their energy efficiency investments. Every day we see more and more electric vehicles on our streets. According to the City of Eugene's Community Greenhouse Gas Inventory, the we have decreased the carbon emissions of our buildings by "51% due to an increase in the share of low-carbon intensity electricity production generated or purchased by EWEB."
Throughout the next two weeks, while world leaders deliberate at COP26, we'd like to remind our community about our collective successes and how far we've come along together. While there is still much work to be done, by identifying clear, concrete actions we can all take, we can help create small victories that propel our momentum.
Follow along as we report some of our victories, share some exciting news about new programs and projects, and provide you with opportunities to take direct action to reduce your carbon footprint, cut down on your energy use and save money.