Connecting the Hill Country
Electric Coop Expands Services in Expansive Territory
Rolling into the Cowboy Capitol of the World in Eric Hanken’s Tesla didn’t seem out of place for long. The Bauhaus Media crew was in Bandera to meet with the marketing director and CEO for a group that was also into innovation. The Bandera Electric Cooperative had an ambitious plan to bring high speed broadband, solar energy and other energy enhancements to its rural members.
And they had the vision to use video to inform their members all about what their coop was doing for them. This gave Bauhaus Media the opportunity to bring in all it’s tools to get quality 4K video of the territory and interview stakeholders to tell the BEC story.
Over the course of about two years, our team became very familiar with BEC services and its service area, which includes a big chunk of West Texas, from Boerne to Leaky. It is an expansive area, including lots of open, rural territory and some more densely populated cities, such as Uvalde, Bandera, Rio Medina and Boerne.
Providing electric power to all the residents of this area is BEC’s primary responsibility. But, with new technologies and increasing connectivity needs in the service area, BEC needed to expand its capabilities and, at the same time, let its members know what is currently available to them and what is coming.
For example, it takes time to lay fiber optic lines over hundreds of miles of rugged Hill Country. And since the need for high-speed internet connections has grown intensely – for working from home, delivery of education, medical services, television programs, video games and more – BEC members are eager to get the service.
Rural Texans are noted for their sense of independence, so solar energy has a particular appeal to many of them. But the cooperative also benefits when members go solar. Energy they generate back into the system saves all the members tens of thousands of dollars.
Bauhaus Media crews enjoyed many forays into the Hill Country, shooting footage for videos on Fiber Optics, Solar Energy, Cutting the Cord to cable or satellite TV, an Introduction to the BEC Board of Directors, and an especially fun project about non-profit groups that benefit from the BEC Foundation.
The Tesla connection was finally made when the Bauhaus crew visited a residential solar installation. There on the back wall of a multi-car garage was a bank of Tesla storage batteries, testament to the fact that cooperatives are keeping their rural members up to date on technology.
