Have you ever wondered why your Warren Electric account number looks different than any other account number you have? Do you know why your account number changes when you move from one house to another?
Since the early days of the Cooperative, Warren Electric has divided our service area into a grid system, based on Longitude and Latitude. The first graphic below shows our system map, with each area broken into primary sections. Each of these primary sections covers approximately 87 square miles. This represents the first number in your account number. Meaning, if you live in Sugar Grove or Farmington Townships, the first number in your account number is most likely 4.
The next graphic, shows how each of the primary sections is broken out into one hundred secondary sections. Each of the secondary sections, except for the border sections, cover approximately one square mile. The second number in your account number represents one of these secondary sections on the grid.
The last number in your account identifies your service location in that specific secondary grid. The last graphic below shows grid 4-58. We have hidden all the real accounts for privacy. If your account number was 4-58-ABC, then you would be located at the intersection of Scranton Hollow Road and West Road.
This grid system helps our employees quickly narrow in on where a problem might be. If a large number of members are reporting a power outage, from the same primary and secondary grid section, then they can trace that line back to the sub-station and find the issue.
When our crews are out in the field after-hours, there is normally limited support back in the office. With nothing more than a pager and a map-book, our crews are able to figure out exactly where you are located, even if they don’t know about the area. This can be extremely valuable when we have linemen from other cooperatives coming in to help us after a major storm.
This also helps our staff know how many lineman crews to call out if the outage occurs after hours. Over 200 members have service locations on State Route 666. It is over 33 miles long and runs through 3 primary sections of our service map. Knowing that 50 members on Rt. 666 have an outage doesn’t mean much, but knowing that 21 of those members are in 15-88 and the remaining 24 are in 19-56 might mean that we may have two separate issues.
We recommend you keep your account number in a place that would be easily accessible in case of a power outage, like by your phone. Your account number is printed on your bill in two locations. The first is on top of your bill, in the center. If you have already removed this portion to send back with your payment, it can also be found on the right hand side, under your name, in bold. If you don’t have a bill handy, or can’t locate the number, please feel free to call our office and we would be happy to look it up for you.
You now know why your account number is formatted the way it is, and why it is the first thing we ask for. Not only does it uniquely identify you and your account, but without knowing anything else, our employees can quickly identify your service location.