Speakers

Kevin is General Manager of Anza Electric Cooperative, Inc., located in Southern California’s Riverside County. One of only three electric distribution cooperatives in the Golden State, Anza Electric serves 5,400 meters across a 550 square mile rural area. 

With a background in electrical engineering and solar contracting, Kevin has brought a fresh perspective to the business operations of Anza Electric. After 70 years, the Cooperative still maintains a rate structure far below the surrounding investor-owned utilities while retiring more than $11M in capital credits to their members.   

In late 2012, Kevin laid the ground work for ConnectAnza, a high speed broadband ISP offering for Anza Electric members. This is a full fiber-to-the-premises deployment, bringing a 100 Mb/s symmetric initial offering to its members for $49 per month. Near future plans include full megabit speeds for all subscribers. Since Anza Electric is a not-for-profit cooperative, the ConnectAnza service is offered at cost for members. Anza is one of the first electric cooperatives in the nation to not only offer high speed internet, but to do so at cost. 

In 2015, ConnectAnza won a competitive grant from the California Public Utilities Commission in support of rural broadband deployment in the amount of $2.7M, the first such grant in Riverside County. ConnectAnza began construction in December, 2015, and now has over 700 miles of aerial fiber deployed, with nearly 2,500 area businesses and residents signed up for service. 

In late 2016, The Anza Board of Directors approved the installation of an Electric Vehicle Charging station, open to the public. The station is the first in the region, serving more than 700 square miles previously unserved by EV infrastructure. This project was funded through the California Pollution Control Financing Authority’s California Capital Access Program (CalCAP). Anza’s loan was the very first successful loan in this state program. 

Anza dedicated its SunAnza Solar project in June 2017, a 2 MW solar array adjacent to their headquarters. The second phase of the program, completed in December 2021, includes an additional 1.4 MW of generation and 4.5 MW of battery storage for microgrid capability. This deployment helped garner AEC the Smart Electric Power Alliance the #2 award in the nation for deployed solar per customer, as well as runner-up for Cooperative of the year in 2018.