By: Ryan Duey

New Bluestem Electric Cooperative CEO Michael Leitch presented to Clay Center Lions Club members during their weekly meeting on April 15th. Leitch took over as CEO after the former CEO Michael Morton retired at the beginning of the year.

Leitch is the former Regional Vice-President of Frontier Farm Credit out of Manhattan.  He spoke about his new role with Bluestem along with the future of electricity. He said they supply electricity to over 5500 members.

“A little bit about our system, we have just about 7600 meters that represent 5547 members in our cooperative. We have 2781 miles of line that we maintain currently, that continues to grow.”

“In total, we have around 30 employees. We have eight or nine here I believe, including linemen, some foremen, and then Jarod Chafee, he’s our Line Superintendent.”

Bluestem currently services 11 counties in Kansas.  Leitch said the current estimates show a 200% growth in electrical needs in the next 10 years.

“The current estimates are that we’re going to see about a 200% increase in demand for base load electricity in the next 10 years. That’s due to the reindustrialization of the United States that has been happening in the last few years, the data centers that are popping up all over the country, they take huge amounts of electricity.”

“Also, Artificial Intelligence. So, if you use AI to do a search compared to just a Google search, it uses 10 times as much electricity as a normal search.”

Leitch said the way they plan to combat the growth is through new technologies, including installing AMI meters, which show real-time usage, can be disconnected and connected remotely, alerts them of outages before a phone call is needed, and more.

Leitch also spoke about the use of renewable energy in the system, including wind and solar energy. They currently receive solar energy from two different solar farms in the state. He said they have a very robust system that is in fantastic shape, thanks to the crew at Bluestem.