From the board room

YEC is proud to announce it will not change its over­all rates in the next two years. We will main­tain the same low rates we’ve pro­vid­ed mem­bers for the past decade.

Anoth­er unprece­dent­ed year has passed, but we accom­plished many note­wor­thy goals, includ­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of high-speed inter­net to more than 500 mem­bers in the unserved areas of our ter­ri­to­ry; $2 mil­lion dol­lars returned to mem­bers in Cap­i­tal Cred­its; anoth­er 10% dis­count for all mem­bers on Novem­ber billing state­ments; a suc­cess­ful inau­gur­al dri­ve-thru annu­al meet­ing; and low­er rates. We’ve strate­gi­cal­ly planned to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing afford­able, safe and reli­able ser­vice, keep­ing your pow­er on and mon­ey in your pock­et.

Inno­va­tion and adap­ta­tion

Although our lob­bies remained closed, our employ­ees adapt­ed to serve mem­bers safe­ly at each office loca­tion. Using tools such as online chat and our updat­ed mem­ber por­tal, mem­bers were able to con­tin­ue their coop­er­a­tive busi­ness more con­ve­nient­ly by using tech­nol­o­gy. In 2021, we lever­aged tech­nol­o­gy to con­tin­ue our push to save paper and be more envi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious. We worked smarter with less paper­work and few­er field vis­its.

Reli­a­bil­i­ty

Our new Aycock School Sub­sta­tion was fin­ished and brought online in 2021, increas­ing ser­vice reli­a­bil­i­ty for mem­bers liv­ing in the south­ern Rock Hill and McConnells areas. A large invest­ment and work project, the new trans­mis­sion lines and sub­sta­tion pro­vid­ed addi­tion­al capac­i­ty for elec­tric ser­vice. Addi­tion­al­ly, more than 250 miles of right-of-way were cut to min­i­mize out­age risks. A large por­tion of this work was around our India Hook Sub­sta­tion, which serves the Mt. Gal­lant Road, Twin Lakes Road and Celanese Road areas of Rock Hill. Addi­tion­al work in this area includ­ed bury­ing sev­er­al miles of ser­vice lines to min­i­mize expo­sure to poten­tial out­age threats. YEC now has more than half of our dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem under­ground for increased reli­a­bil­i­ty across our entire ter­ri­to­ry. Oth­er updates includ­ed the new equip­ment at our Lake­view sub­sta­tion, new dis­tri­b­u­tion lines across the Cataw­ba Riv­er and larg­er con­duc­tors along High­way 49.

Mon­ey mat­ters

We’re in great finan­cial shape. One of the best tests to con­firm this is our abil­i­ty to return cap­i­tal cred­its to mem­bers. Not only did we dis­trib­ute $2 mil­lion to mem­bers in May 2021, but we also pro­vid­ed a 10% mem­ber appre­ci­a­tion dis­count to all mem­bers in Novem­ber. Pro­grams like Beat The Peak and our smart ther­mo­stat pro­gram help you stay con­scious of the ener­gy you use so you can help YEC keep pow­er costs low.

Giv­ing back

Whether we are find­ing inno­v­a­tive ways to vir­tu­al­ly con­nect with stu­dents, or host­ing Oper­a­tion Round Up Trust Board pre­sen­ta­tions online, we nav­i­gat­ed the pan­dem­ic and found a way to con­tin­ue giv­ing back. Thanks to the help of our gen­er­ous mem­bers, we’ve giv­en $250,000 back to the com­mu­ni­ty through Oper­a­tion Round Up this year, mak­ing our total con­tri­bu­tion more than $3.3 mil­lion dol­lars since the pro­gram began in 2000.

Addi­tion­al­ly, we’ve raised approx­i­mate­ly $16,000 through The Bur­rell Foun­da­tion to impact our local com­mu­ni­ties. More fundrais­ing efforts will con­tin­ue in 2022 so we can make a larg­er impact to those who need our help.

Stu­dents ben­e­fit­ed from $17,000 in schol­ar­ships in 2021 and local teach­ers were award­ed $11,000 in Bright Ideas Grants. With the help of Hun­gry Heroes, we fed local first respon­ders, hon­or­ing their com­mit­ment and ser­vice to our com­mu­ni­ty. Last­ly, employ­ees helped save 27 lives with our annu­al blood dri­ve.

Look­ing ahead

We’ve got big plans to con­tin­ue serv­ing you with excel­lence and pro­vid­ing a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life for mem­bers. Afford­abil­i­ty and reli­able ser­vice con­tin­ue to be in our sights as we make future plans.

Our five-year trim­ming cycle con­tin­ues in 2022, with plans to cut more than 350 miles of right-of-way. Updat­ing equip­ment, bury­ing more pri­ma­ry deliv­ery lines and updat­ing sub­sta­tions are all impor­tant invest­ments in ser­vice reli­a­bil­i­ty for mem­bers. Look for more updates on the rebuild of our India Hook and Flint Hill sub­sta­tions through­out this year. We will also increase the con­duc­tor size for Banks Street, Para­ham Road, Indi­an Trail and Doby’s Bridge Road to bet­ter serve growth in those areas. Addi­tion­al­ly, we will update equip­ment and dis­tri­b­u­tion lines for the High­way 21 road project and the new hos­pi­tal in Fort Mill. YEC’s Rur­al Inter­net Project will con­tin­ue to grow through­out this year, with plans to fin­ish Phase 1 and begin work on Phase 2 of the project.

Rest assured we’re here, always look­ing out for you and your best inter­ests. Thank you for allow­ing us the priv­i­lege of rep­re­sent­ing you in the board room.

TOM SETTLEMYRE

Chair­man, Dis­trict 1