As We Welcome a new year, your York Electric Cooperative Board of Trustees continues to work as a team to serve you with affordable, safe and reliable electricity. Our boardroom table has been full of conversations thinking of you, our valued members, and our goal to govern your cooperative so that your voice is heard, your bills are low and your lights stay on.
Looking back on our accomplishments in 2022, we are proud to have invested in our infrastructure, strategized to maintain low rates despite economic challenges and damaging storms and increase the availability of rural internet to many of the unserved members in our territory, all while being able to return the largest amount of capital credits to members in your co-op’s history—$2.5 million.
Additionally, we’ve been discussing the future. Each day, the electrification of the economy becomes more of a reality than a theory and we want to assure you that your co-op is prepared. For example, we are working with other cooperatives across South Carolina to continue learning about electric vehicles so that our delivery system, employees and members are educated on what may come. Last year, we launched the ChooseEV tool on our website to help with EV education and information. This tool includes real-time data and cost projections so that members are informed before making an EV purchase.
We continue to be good stewards of each dollar that comes in to the cooperative as we invest in projects that make your service more reliable, your distribution system more resilient and the process to conduct business easier for members. Our board’s financial responsibility for the integrity of your co-op and future plans has been crucial as our energy future evolves.
Most of all, and I speak on behalf of my eight other colleagues, we are proud of our employees and the tremendous job they do for you. On the accompanying page, let’s look at what we’ve been able to accomplish together.
It is my privilege to lead our board, support the great work our team of employees accomplishes for our members and to always look out for you.
Max T. Settlemyre
Board Chairman, District 1
Year in review
A recap of YEC’s major accomplishments in 2022
Everything we do is in service to our members. So, we want you to know what’s been done to keep our services to you safe, reliable and affordable. Here are some of the milestones that made 2022 a successful year for York Electric.
Organizational accomplishments
- Onboarded and trained new employees.
- Placed 4th among midsized companies as one of SC’s Best Places to Work.
- Trained employees to provide consistent information to members, improve job skills and support additional education efforts to better serve you.
System reliability
- Installed state-of-the-art equipment in two of our substations.
- Installed smart devices that locate and isolate outages across our system. Began construction of the new Flint Hill Substation; estimated completion May 2023.
- Worked towards completing our goal of burying distribution lines underground in areas that are hazardous and hard to reach in outage situations. This year, we accomplished 1.5 miles of this task and are proud to be over halfway finished with our goal.
- Added 29 major projects to our system, including large residential subdivisions and commercial sites.
Service excellence
- Received a score of 94 from members on the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey.
- Our team has driven 603,816 miles and answered 114,812 calls to serve you.
- Excluding large storm events, our lineworkers responded to all outages within one hour of the first report 99% of the time.
- All mailed payments are now processed in the York office for better service and efficiency.
Financial, system security
- Trained all employees on the importance of awareness of cyber security.
- Integrated new technologies to process eCommerce payments more efficiently.
- Developed inclement weather and outage response tools for our Information Services and Member Services teams.
- Created an incident response plan to better prepare for handling security incidents.
Rural internet
- Installed 480 miles of fiber.
- High-speed service is now available to 3,500 previously unserved members.
- Through our partnership with Comporium, 1,100 members are signed up for this new service.
- We expect completion of our Rural Internet Project by the year-end of 2023, providing access to over 5,000 unserved members.
Community support
- Provided $13,500 in scholarships for high school seniors.
- Provided $14,500 to local teachers through our Bright Ideas Grant Program.
- YEC’s Operation Round Up Program, which is completely funded by our generous members, supported the most vulnerable in our community with $250,315 in charitable donations. Since it began in 2000, the Operation Round Up Program has provided over $3.6 million in community support.
- Continued working with local economic development leaders to bring more quality jobs to our area, invest in local infrastructure and develop new commercial opportunities to attract businesses that will positively impact our area.
- Purchased 32 acres on Hwy. 321 in York for future business park development.
