Year in review

YEC achieves goals in 2023

At YEC, we are always work­ing to serve you with excel­lence. For exam­ple, did you know it costs 67 cents to mail your month­ly billing state­ment? Our team has worked to reduce this cost by encour­ag­ing mem­bers to sign up for elec­tron­ic billing. Now, more than 40 per­cent of our mem­bers receive their month­ly bill by email.

In May 2023, we returned the high­est total in your co-op’s his­to­ry of $2.6 mil­lion in cap­i­tal cred­its. This is a record dol­lar amount for your co-op, show­ing our finan­cial strength. Then we returned an addi­tion­al $1.5 mil­lion to mem­bers who no longer live on coop­er­a­tive lines.

Per­haps most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, member’s rates did not increase in 2023. For every $1 you pay, only 20 cents goes to oper­at­ing your co-op and cov­er­ing inter­est expens­es.

Here are some of our key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors for 2023 we used to mea­sure our suc­cess.

Mem­ber com­fort and reli­a­bil­i­ty

• Approx­i­mate­ly 345 miles of right of way were cut to main­tain our five-year rota­tion, improv­ing the reli­a­bil­i­ty, safe­ty and out­age response time for mem­bers.
• Com­plet­ed the rebuild­ing of our Flint Hill sub­sta­tion, serv­ing over 1,800 mem­bers in the Fort Mill area.
• Began con­struc­tion on our new Alli­son Creek sub­sta­tion on Hwy. 274.
• Con­struct­ed a new 100 KV trans­mis­sion line to serve the India Hook area of Rock Hill to improve reli­a­bil­i­ty in that area.
• Iden­ti­fy and rebuild equip­ment and sec­tions of dis­tri­b­u­tion lines to strength­en reli­a­bil­i­ty and out­age response times.
• Help mem­bers save ener­gy and mon­ey through the smart ther­mo­stat, com­mu­ni­ty and rooftop solar, and elec­tric vehi­cle pro­grams.
• Col­lect­ed GPS data for equip­ment loca­tions and pho­tographs to ensure a more accu­rate map of our sys­tem.
• Pur­chased a drone and began train­ing employ­ees to use this tech­nol­o­gy to effi­cient­ly inspect, review and audit equip­ment and storm dam­age.

Edu­ca­tion and train­ing

• Host­ed instal­la­tion train­ing for elec­tric vehi­cle charg­ers for our employ­ees and oth­ers through­out the South­east.
• YEC line­men par­tic­i­pat­ed in pole top res­cue train­ing.
• YEC employ­ees par­tic­i­pat­ed in CPR, first aid and defen­sive dri­ving train­ing and cyber secu­ri­ty class­es.
• YEC employ­ees par­tic­i­pat­ed in over 40 con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion class­es offered by our statewide orga­ni­za­tion, ECSC.
• We host­ed oth­er South Car­oli­na coop­er­a­tives to col­lab­o­rate on infor­ma­tion and train­ing, as well as sent a group of employ­ees to vis­it a larg­er out-of-state coop­er­a­tive to con­sid­er new ideas.

Com­mu­ni­ty impact and giv­ing

• Vol­un­teer work with Habi­tat for Human­i­ty and Life House Women’s Shel­ter.
• Through our Oper­a­tion Round Up Trust, the board elect­ed to fund $329,471.45 to pos­i­tive­ly impact the most at risk in our area.
• Through the help of our com­mu­ni­ty and busi­ness part­ners, we raised more than $100,000 at our annu­al Bur­rell Foun­da­tion auc­tion.
• Fund­ed $20,000 in Bright Ideas Grants for local teach­ers.
• Pro­vid­ed $14,500 in schol­ar­ships to local, senior stu­dents. Sent three ris­ing seniors to our nation’s cap­i­tal through Wash­ing­ton Youth Tour and four stu­dents to learn about coop­er­a­tives in Colum­bia through Coop­er­a­tive Youth Sum­mit.
• Hon­ored 1,000 vet­er­ans for their ser­vice and sac­ri­fice at our annu­al Vet­er­ans Day Cel­e­bra­tion. 
• Began clear­ing and com­plet­ing ini­tial road con­struc­tion at our Springlake Busi­ness Park to attract more qual­i­ty jobs and busi­ness­es in our area.