We need your help

The CEO poses for the camera
Craig Spencer

We are all no strangers to ris­ing costs. From the rise in gro­cery store prices and oth­er every­day items to sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions, we’ve all worked to man­age our house­holds, busi­ness­es and bank accounts to the best of our abil­i­ty.

Your Board of Trustees and the lead­er­ship at your co-op have been doing the same thing. We shared last month that through month­ly track­ing and account­abil­i­ty, we’ve been able to save mem­bers approx­i­mate­ly $14 mil­lion in com­par­i­son to the medi­an report­ed con­trol­lable expens­es of co-ops through­out the Pal­met­to State. We’re the low­est and we intend to keep it that way.

Just like you man­age your finances at home, you can also man­age your ener­gy use, help­ing your co-op hold down pow­er costs. Sim­ply being mind­ful of when you are using the most energy—such as three-prong appli­ances, your heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tem and water heater—can help off­set peak demand.

Your co-op gets a pow­er bill just like you. A large por­tion of our bill is based on demand, or the moment in time each month when the most peo­ple are using the most ener­gy. In the sum­mer, that is from 3–6 p.m. and in the win­ter it is from 6–9 a.m. If we can reduce the amount of ener­gy used at those times, we all save mon­ey.

Pro­grams like Beat the Peak and our Smart Ther­mo­stat pro­gram are easy ways you can get involved and help your co-op move the nee­dle on pow­er costs. We’re doing all we can to cut costs, and we hope you will join us in this effort by using ener­gy wise­ly.

We now know we will have to increase our rates for the first time in over a decade in 2025. As we final­ize the num­ber and impact to our mem­bers, we appre­ci­ate your con­tin­ued help with man­ag­ing your ener­gy use, eas­ing the bur­den for us all.

Dur­ing this year’s co-op month, let’s remem­ber how work­ing togeth­er can make the biggest dif­fer­ence. Please know our board of trustees and co-op man­age­ment have been ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing the least impact to our mem­bers as pos­si­ble. We will have a final deci­sion on what this increase will look like for mem­bers next month and will be shar­ing the changes you can expect in the November/December issue of the mag­a­zine.

We’re always look­ing out for you, and we hope you join us in also look­ing out for each oth­er.

Craig Spencer
Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer