HAYS — Sunflower Electric Power Corp. has promoted Dae VanPelt to manager of system operations. 

VanPelt is responsible for managing safe and reliable operation of Sunflower’s transmission and generation system including outage coordination, line switching, voltage regulation and generation loading. He ensures Sunflower is compliant with all participation agreements, interconnection agreements, and power contracts, as well as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s operating and reliability standards and the Southwest Power Pool’s market protocols. In addition, VanPelt provides leadership for the system operations training program designed to prepare new recruits in mastering the skills required of system operators.

During his tenure 16-year tenure at Sunflower, VanPelt has demonstrated highly technical expertise, serving in multiple positions within system operations, including system operator, EMS/SCADA applications coordinator, and the system operations supervisor. He has a strong background in the electric utility industry with expertise in the areas of transmission operations, generation operations, system reliability and supervision. 

As a system operations supervisor, VanPelt was instrumental in overseeing the transition to a new system monitoring and control system, coordinating the implementation of a training simulator as part of that upgrade, and supervising system operation’s role in protecting grid reliability during numerous weather events, including Winter Storm Uri in February 2021.

A native of Bushton and a graduate of Barton County Community College, VanPelt resides in Holcomb with his wife and four children.