Highlights from our team: 2022 in review

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

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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.