Our powerful commitment to renewables

For a decade now, York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive has made a com­mit­ment to renew­able ener­gy sources for its mem­bers, includ­ing solar pow­er as tech­nolo­gies have devel­oped.

Begin­ning with offer­ing Green Pow­er to our mem­bers in 2004, YEC has more recent­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in a 2011 solar ther­mal pilot project in which 21 mem­bers’ homes (70 statewide) were retro­fit­ted with solar water-heat­ing tech­nol­o­gy with the goal of using the data gath­ered to deter­mine the pre­cise costs and ben­e­fits of solar hot-water sys­tems for res­i­den­tial use.

Solar projects

Recent­ly Clover Mid­dle School became YEC’s sec­ond Green Pow­er Solar School, get­ting a new solar array for stu­dents to learn from and join­ing Spring­field Mid­dle School in Fort Mill. The solar cells pro­vide a teach­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for the stu­dents to learn about the chal­lenges and ben­e­fits of solar ener­gy. Addi­tion­al­ly, YEC’s web­site recent­ly added a renew­able ener­gies sec­tion to allow mem­bers to explore alter­na­tive forms of ener­gy.

We’ve recent­ly worked with San­tee Coop­er to com­plete a solar instal­la­tion project at YEC’s Fort Mill office which is four times as big as the pan­els at Clover and Spring­field Mid­dle schools. The pan­els have the poten­tial to gen­er­ate approx­i­mate­ly half of the office’s use for a year; how­ev­er, YEC is putting all the elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed back on the grid instead of tying it back to the office.

The pro­gres­sion con­tin­ues with our involve­ment with oth­er South Car­oli­na co-ops in the Col­leton Coun­ty Solar Farm project, the largest in South Car­oli­na.

Our com­mit­ment to renew­able ener­gies is shared by elec­tric coop­er­a­tives nation­wide. Co-ops have dou­bled their owned and pur­chased renew­able ener­gy capac­i­ty since 2009, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion released recent­ly by the Nation­al Rur­al Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Asso­ci­a­tion. This capac­i­ty includes pow­er gen­er­at­ed from wind, solar, small hydro, bio­mass, land­fill gas and geot­her­mal instal­la­tions. By sup­port­ing a wide range of fuels for elec­tric pow­er, YEC and coop­er­a­tives nation­wide can help reduce costs and keep rates low.

Best way forward

See the sto­ry regard­ing renew­able ener­gy pro­grams we’re now offer­ing. Please note that par­tic­i­pa­tion in these pro­grams is com­plete­ly vol­un­tary. We’d like to stress that our mem­bers will not be sub­si­diz­ing YEC’s renew­able ener­gy pro­grams. Both solar and wind must rep­re­sent viable alter­na­tives in order for York Elec­tric to embrace them. Our hope is that advances in tech­nol­o­gy will bring that to pass.

In the mean­time, we’re pleased to offer pro­grams that help our co-op and our com­mu­ni­ties find the best way for­ward. We’ll have even more good news to share with you in the com­ing months about projects now in the plan­ning stages.