FAQ

Advance Pay is a pre-pay plan that lets you pay when you want, in the amounts you want. Instead of receiv­ing a paper bill each month, ener­gy use is cal­cu­lat­ed dai­ly. Advance Pay mem­bers nev­er pay a late charge, dis­con­nect fees or recon­nect fees.

Would it be eas­i­er for you to make week­ly or biweek­ly pay­ments rather than one large pay­ment each month? If so, Advance Pay might be for you! Mem­bers inter­est­ed in mon­i­tor­ing and low­er­ing elec­tric­i­ty use could benefit, too.

You can set up notifi­ca­tions by e‑mail or text to noti­fy you of a low bal­ance, allow­ing time to buy pow­er. If you do not pur­chase more, the meter will stop until funds are applied to your account.

Mak­ing a pay­ment is easy, even on week­ends and hol­i­days! Once pay­ment is received, your pow­er will recon­nect almost imme­di­ate­ly.

The annu­al meet­ing is dri­ve-thru, so just stay in the com­fort of your car. YEC employ­ees will be there to help guide you through each step of the process to reg­is­ter and cast your vote.

Yes – the annu­al meet­ing will be held, rain or shine.

The door prize win­ners, includ­ing the grand prize win­ners, will be announced dur­ing the vir­tu­al busi­ness meet­ing. All door prizes that can be mailed will be sent direct­ly to win­ners. If your name is cho­sen we will con­tact you to pro­vide you details about your prize on Mon­day fol­low­ing the annu­al meet­ing.

All oth­er door prizes will be announced dur­ing the vir­tu­al busi­ness meet­ing. Win­ners will be con­tact­ed on Mon­day fol­low­ing the annu­al meet­ing.

Each mem­ber will receive an offi­cial announce­ment in the April South Car­oli­na Liv­ing mag­a­zine, as well as a reg­is­tra­tion post­card. Please keep your reg­is­tra­tion post­card and bring it with you to the annu­al meet­ing.

No park­ing will be avail­able at the annu­al meet­ing because it is com­plete­ly dri­ve-thru.

We accept 12 dif­fer­ent forms of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion for mem­bers.

The can­di­dates for the YEC board of direc­tors elec­tion can be reviewed here.

A sam­ple bal­lot is avail­able to review now.

The Annu­al Meet­ing is a meet­ing of YEC’s mem­bers and a spe­cial occa­sion for mem­bers to par­tic­i­pate in coop­er­a­tive busi­ness and meet their coop­er­a­tive lead­ers and employ­ees. As a demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly con­trolled, not-for-prof­it busi­ness, our bylaws indi­cate we host a meet­ing for mem­bers to gath­er and vote on impor­tant mat­ters each year. We’ve adapt­ed the meet­ing to be safe for all and con­ve­nient for you by host­ing reg­is­tra­tion and vot­ing as a dri­ve-thru expe­ri­ence and vir­tu­al busi­ness meet­ing. Each mem­ber who is present and reg­is­ters receives a reg­is­tra­tion gift and will be eli­gi­ble to win door prizes. Most impor­tant­ly, mem­bers can exer­cise their coop­er­a­tive right to vote in the elec­tion for seats on the cooperative’s Board of Trustees. Dur­ing the vir­tu­al busi­ness meet­ing that will be streamed on our web­site and our Face­book page, our Pres­i­dent and CEO, attor­ney, and Board Chair­man will update you on impor­tant Coop­er­a­tive busi­ness and share elec­tion results.

Each mem­ber who attends the annu­al meet­ing and reg­is­ters will receive a $25 pow­er bill cred­it.

Only mem­bers who attend the annu­al meet­ing, pro­vide prop­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and their reg­is­tra­tion card are eli­gi­ble to receive a reg­is­tra­tion gift, vote and be entered into the door prize draw­ing. 

YEC has three grand prizes avail­able to win at this year’s annu­al meet­ing. They include a 2014 Ford F‑150 and (2) $500 pow­er bill cred­its. Win­ners will be con­tact­ed on Mon­day fol­low­ing the annu­al meet­ing.

All mem­bers of the coop­er­a­tive are eli­gi­ble to reg­is­ter with a valid pho­to ID and their reg­is­tra­tion card. The reg­is­tra­tion card will be on the front cov­er of your April issue of South Car­oli­na Liv­ing Mag­a­zine.

Yes! After vot­ing and reg­is­ter­ing your atten­dance, cars will have the option to loop through a spe­cial line to receive a bag of free hot dogs, lim­it­ed to one bag per mem­ber­ship. Hot dogs will be avail­able on Sat­ur­day, May 6, begin­ning at 9 a.m., while sup­plies last.

The YEC annu­al meet­ing will be held in Fort Mill on Wednes­day, May 3, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at our oper­a­tions cen­ter at 2000 High­way 21, right across from Cap­tain Steve’s, and at our main office, 1385 E. Alexan­der Love Hwy. on Sat­ur­day, May 6 from 7:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. Mem­bers may reg­is­ter and vote at one of these two loca­tions. The vir­tu­al busi­ness meet­ing will be live online Sat­ur­day evening.

YEC has been using AMR, auto­mat­ed meter read­ing, for many years. AMR allows elec­tric sys­tems to read meters from a remote loca­tion. AMI goes a step beyond remote meter read­ing because it allows two-way com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the meter and the elec­tric sys­tem.

No. York Elec­tric requires mem­bers to pro­vide and main­tain rea­son­able access to the elec­tric meter. This allows mem­bers or co-op per­son­nel to either read or main­tain the meter if nec­es­sary.

No. The AMI com­put­er soft­ware is specif­i­cal­ly writ­ten for York Elec­tric. The sub­sta­tion’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment is set up by the meter mod­el and ser­i­al num­ber. Each meter is added to the sys­tem by its ser­i­al num­ber and sub­sta­tion loca­tion. All oth­er infor­ma­tion and data is stored in the meter itself and is secured and sealed.

Noth­ing. YEC still needs access to your prop­er­ty for rou­tine main­te­nance or emer­gency repairs.

Con­tact a Mem­ber Ser­vices Rep­re­sen­ta­tive at York Elec­tric by call­ing 803–684‑4248 right away to dis­cuss any billing con­cerns. The AMI meters have been test­ed and con­form to all applic­a­ble stan­dards and reg­u­la­tions.

• Improves out­age noti­fi­ca­tion and man­age­ment process.
• Pro­vides addi­tion­al meter­ing data to bet­ter assist mem­bers with billing and ser­vice ques­tions.
• Gives York Elec­tric the capa­bil­i­ty to pro­vide mem­bers with valu­able usage infor­ma­tion such as con­sump­tion pat­terns, out­age and blink count his­to­ry, and volt­age infor­ma­tion.
• Improves meter read­ing accu­ra­cy and pro­vides con­sis­tent billing peri­ods. With an AMI sys­tem, meters can be auto­mat­i­cal­ly set to read on the same day of each month.
• Reduces loss­es by iden­ti­fy­ing pow­er theft and oth­er prob­lems.

The AMI sys­tem offered numer­ous mem­ber ben­e­fits in a vari­ety of areas and helped us pre­pare for the elec­tric pow­er industry’s fast-paced tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment.

The meters receive and store the kilo­­watt-hour and demand con­sump­tion, then trans­mits this and oth­er data over the pow­er lines to equip­ment locat­ed in one of York Elec­tric’s sub­sta­tions. From the sub­sta­tion, the infor­ma­tion is sent to a com­put­er at our head­quar­ters.

It records kWh read­ings, the num­ber of times loss of pow­er has occurred, reverse pow­er flow caused by meter tam­per­ing, and peak usage. It will also record the date and time of pow­er out­ages.

Yes, and that’s good news for all York Elec­tric’s mem­bers since meter tam­per­ing costs thou­sands of dol­lars in rev­enue each year.

No. The AMI meters oper­ate on a polling basis (active sam­pling of exter­nal devices’ sta­tus by an elec­tron­ic pro­gram) and do not imme­di­ate­ly noti­fy the co-op when an out­age occurs. When you have an out­age or emer­gency sit­u­a­tion, you are encour­aged to call us. The AMI meter will help us ver­i­fy the prob­lem. Call 1–866–374‑1234 to report an out­age.

York Elec­tric began installing AMI meters in Jan­u­ary 2011 and fin­ished this project in ear­ly 2015.

Each month­ly bill is the rolling aver­age of your elec­tric usage for the most recent 12 months. In order to have your account placed on a lev­elized bud­get billing, you need to be a mem­ber of YEC at your cur­rent res­i­dence for one year, have main­tained good cred­it (as defined by YEC), have a zero bal­ance, and pay your bill by the orig­i­nal due date each month. There is no ser­vice charge or month­ly fee, so call us if you want to lev­el it out!

This free ser­vice allows you to select a des­ig­nat­ed per­son that we can con­tact when your account goes past due. A per­son may request to be a des­ig­nat­ed third-par­­ty, but must have the account hold­er’s per­mis­sion. Both the mem­ber and this per­son will be noti­fied by phone or mail that the bill is past due. You can sign up to receive this ser­vice by fill­ing out the form and return­ing it to our office. You may also con­tact mem­ber ser­vices at 803–684‑4248.

By sign­ing up for e‑billing, you will no longer receive a paper bill. You will have your bill sent to your email address so you can view it and pay it online.

Please con­tact your finan­cial insti­tu­tion for help.

Oth­er trou­bleshoot­ing tips:

• Make sure your device has the min­i­mum com­pat­i­ble require­ments.
• Make sure your device is up-to-date with the lat­est sys­tem upgrades.

Do you have authen­ti­ca­tion set up on your device?

• Authen­ti­ca­tion must be enabled to use mobile device pay­ments.

This option allows you to com­bine your accounts that are on the same billing cycle on one bill. This fea­ture is great for accounts with mul­ti­ple meters on more than one cycle such as school dis­tricts or apart­ment build­ings.

If a sit­u­a­tion should occur in which you are unable to pay all or a por­tion of your bill, please noti­fy mem­ber ser­vices at 803–684‑4248 as soon as pos­si­ble. They may be able to set up a pay­ment arrange­ment to allow you more time. They may also be able to pro­vide you with a list of help agen­cies that can offer addi­tion­al assis­tance. As a not for prof­it, coop­er­a­tive mem­bers are expect­ed to pay the costs which they incur. We can­not dis­re­gard pay­ments owed to an account.

South Car­oli­na 2–1‑1 is your one-stop resource for find­ing assis­tance in your local com­mu­ni­ty. Use the link below to find ser­vices. Or call 2–1‑1 any time – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – to find vital ser­vices in your com­mu­ni­ty. You can also reach 2–1‑1 toll-free at 1–866–892‑9211. This ser­vice is free and is avail­able in mul­ti­ple languages.nnwww.sc211.org

Your pay­ment is post­ed as soon as we get autho­riza­tion from your cred­it card com­pa­ny or bank, often imme­di­ate­ly. Pay­ments sent by mail will be post­ed when they are received.

You may select one of the fol­low­ing options to make your month­ly elec­tric bill pay­ment:

• Pay direct­ly at our main office in York or at our Fort Mill branch
• Wal­mart– you may now pay your bill at any Wal­mart across the coun­try.
  • Bring your cur­rent YEC bill or bill stub to the cus­tomer ser­vice counter and pay with cash or a PIN-based deb­it card.
  • To allow ade­quate time for pro­cess­ing, please check the dis­con­nect date locat­ed on your YEC bill. Make sure you pay your bill at least 5 days pri­or to the dis­con­nect notice. Oth­er­wise, YEC can­not guar­an­tee your ser­vice will not be dis­con­nect­ed. Stan­dard 3 busi­ness day option is $0.88. Next busi­ness day option is $1.88.
  • Please retain the receipt that is pro­vid­ed to you for your records.
  • For pay­ment ver­i­fi­ca­tion, call (803) 684‑4248 and pro­vide the mem­ber ser­vices rep­re­sen­ta­tive with the 10-dig­it code print­ed at the bot­tom of your Wal­mart cash pay­ment receipt. Find a Wal­mart store near you
• Bank Draft –The account must be paid in full to begin Bank Draft.  When you sign up for York Elec­tric’s Bank Draft pro­gram, the Coop­er­a­tive will auto­mat­i­cal­ly deduct the amount of your bill from your check­ing account each month. You’ll still receive a month­ly state­ment show­ing you the amount of your bill, but you’ll nev­er have to write anoth­er check to pay your elec­tric bill or wor­ry about let­ting the pay­ment slip your mind.
• Pow­er­Touch – pay your bill at your con­ve­nience, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by dial­ing 1–866–374‑1234. You must have your YEC account num­ber avail­able to make your pay­ment. Fees Apply. Most major cred­it cards are accept­ed.
• E‑check – allows you to pay your bill by enter­ing in your check­ing account and bank rout­ing num­bers through York Elec­tric’s web­site.
• Advance Pay – Advance Pay gives you the pow­er to pur­chase elec­tric­i­ty when you want, week­ly or biweek­ly, in the amounts you choose rather than one month­ly pay­ment, allow­ing you to mon­i­tor and con­trol your elec­tric usage dai­ly, week­ly, month­ly with a select pay­ment plan that works for you and your bud­get.

You should receive an allo­ca­tion notice each year after a finan­cial audit of York Elec­tric has been com­plet­ed. Dur­ing the month of May, mem­bers receive Cap­i­tal Cred­it checks in the mail unless the amount due to them is less than $15. If the mem­ber’s refund is less than $15, the amount will be dis­trib­uted and print­ed on their util­i­ty billing state­ment as a line item cred­it.

Cap­i­tal Cred­its are cal­cu­lat­ed by York Elec­tric for every mem­ber who pur­chased elec­tric­i­ty dur­ing a year in which the util­i­ty earned mar­gins. No spe­cial action is required to start a Cap­i­tal Cred­it account. Your mem­ber­ship with York Elec­tric acti­vates your Cap­i­tal Cred­it account.

The amount of Cap­i­tal Cred­its you earn in a giv­en year is based upon the amount of elec­tric­i­ty pur­chased. Each mem­ber receives a cred­it based on a per­cent­age for each dol­lar of elec­tric­i­ty pur­chased.

Not nec­es­sar­i­ly. The board of trustees must autho­rize a refund before you receive a check. When con­sid­er­ing a refund, the board ana­lyzes the finan­cial sta­tus of the coop­er­a­tive and will not autho­rize a refund if it is not in the best inter­est of the mem­ber­ship.

No. Allo­cat­ed Cap­i­tal Cred­its may not be used to pay cur­rent bills. While your elec­tric bill is due month­ly, you will not be enti­tled to your Cap­i­tal Cred­its until the board of trustees autho­rizes a refund. This will take place over many years, since York Elec­tric needs the funds to grow.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the estate can have the bal­ance of Cap­i­tal Cred­its trans­ferred into the heir’s name and the bal­ance will be paid out as the board of trustees approves refunds.

Your Cap­i­tal Cred­its remain in your name and mem­ber num­ber until they are retired. You just need to ensure that York Elec­tric has your cur­rent mail­ing address.

Cap­i­tal Cred­its are a ben­e­fit of mem­ber­ship in a mem­ber-owned util­i­ty. Each year, YEC uses the rev­enues that exceed oper­at­ing costs as equi­ty. These funds and bor­rowed cap­i­tal allow YEC to serve a grow­ing num­ber of mem­bers while imple­ment­ing the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy to pro­vide the best pos­si­ble ser­vice. As a not-for-prof­it util­i­ty, YEC lat­er returns these rev­enues to the mem­bers who orig­i­nal­ly paid them in their elec­tric bills.

Each year, our mem­bers receive Cap­i­tal Cred­it checks. Mem­bers will receive Cap­i­tal Cred­it checks in the mail unless the amount due to them is less than $15. If the mem­ber’s refund is less than $15, the amount will be dis­trib­uted and print­ed on their util­i­ty billing state­ment as a line item cred­it. The amount of Cap­i­tal Cred­its returned is deter­mined by total rev­enues received over expens­es for the coop­er­a­tive and your total ener­gy billings for the year. They are paid peri­od­i­cal­ly with board approval after review of YEC’s finan­cial sta­tus.

If you leave YEC’s ser­vice area, your Cap­i­tal Cred­its remain in your name and mem­ber num­ber until they are retired. There­fore, you need to make sure YEC has your cur­rent mail­ing address.

York Elec­tric is a coop­er­a­tive. A coop­er­a­tive is owned by its mem­bers and does not tech­ni­cal­ly earn prof­its. Instead, any rev­enues over the cost of doing busi­ness are con­sid­ered “mar­gins.” These mar­gins rep­re­sent an inter­est-free loan of oper­at­ing cap­i­tal by the mem­ber­ship of the coop­er­a­tive. This cap­i­tal allows York Elec­tric to finance oper­a­tions and, to a cer­tain extent, con­struc­tion. The util­i­ty then returns this cap­i­tal to the mem­bers in lat­er years.

Check­Out is a con­ve­nient, new cash-based pay­ment appli­ca­tion allow­ing util­i­ty con­sumers to pay their bill with your util­i­ty using a Check­Out bar­code and cash at over 50,000 retail loca­tions across the coun­try.

First, the YEC mem­ber obtains their unique bar­code. The mem­ber can vis­it any par­tic­i­pat­ing local retail­er to pay their bill. The cashier at the retail­er scans the mem­ber’s bar­code and accepts their pay­ment. The mem­ber’s pay­ment is post­ed in real-time to his or her account.

Pay­ments made at par­tic­i­pat­ing retail­ers are applied in real time to the account bal­ance.

A fee of $1.50 per trans­ac­tion is charged to the mem­ber at the retail loca­tion when a pay­ment is ini­ti­at­ed.

Yes. All mem­bers will have their unique bar­code print­ed on the back of their billing state­ment.

No. While the mem­ber has the abil­i­ty to make mul­ti­ple pay­ments across mem­ber account num­bers, they must have down­loaded or print­ed the bar­code for each of the indi­vid­ual accounts they wish to pay.

No. The retail­er does not have access to the bal­ance infor­ma­tion. The mem­ber is required to tell the cashier at the retail­er how much they want to pay.

At the time of the trans­ac­tion, the retail­er can can­cel a pay­ment pri­or to a receipt being gen­er­at­ed. If a mem­ber requires a refund after the pay­ment has been made, he or she will need to con­tact York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive.

The accep­tance method is spec­i­fied on the map of Check­Out retail­ers. The cur­rent retail­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gram accept both paper and dig­i­tal, but it is pos­si­ble for an indi­vid­ual retail­er or even a new retail­er to have lega­cy scan­ning equip­ment that can only accept print­ed bar­codes. In this case, mem­bers would need to pro­vide a print­ed copy.

Over 50,000 retail­ers par­tic­i­pate in the net­work includ­ing Wal­mart, Dol­lar Gen­er­al, CVS, Wal­greens, Speed­way, 7‑Eleven, and Fam­i­ly Dol­lar. Use this inter­ac­tive map to find retail­ers in your area.

The card is a free ben­e­fit of your mem­ber­ship in York Elec­tric. Prod­ucts and ser­vice dis­counts are offered by par­tic­i­pat­ing busi­ness­es. There are more than 100 local and region­al deals and thou­sands of dis­counts offered online and nation­wide. You can also use your card to save on pre­scrip­tions and receive coupons. You can see all the deals at www.connections.coop.

Yes. Just drop by any York Elec­tric office and they will be hap­py to give you a free replace­ment card and key fob with a pho­to ID.

Yes, there are hun­dreds of free coupons avail­able to Co-op Con­nec­tions card­hold­ers. Vis­it www.connection.coop.

Yes. Your phar­ma­cy dis­counts are pro­vid­ed as part of your Co-op Con­nec­tions Pro­gram at no cost. The dis­counts save you 10% to 60% on pre­scrip­tions at over 60,000 phar­ma­cies nation­wide, includ­ing CVS, Wal­greens, Wal­mart, Tar­get and more.

Find a phar­ma­cy near you by call­ing Mem­ber Ser­vices at 800–800‑7616 or vis­it­ing www.locateproviders.com. Use code ‘22203’ as the group num­ber under the “Groups” login sec­tion. Next enter your zip code and the rec­om­mend­ed mile radius of 100 to search for providers near you.

No. One card may be used by the entire fam­i­ly.

Yes. Just present your card and pre­scrip­tion at a par­tic­i­pat­ing retail phar­ma­cy to receive a dis­count at the time of pur­chase.

Solar com­mu­ni­ties are groups of solar pan­els kept at one loca­tion. They offer mem­bers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to invest in solar ener­gy with­out the cost, has­sle, and instal­la­tion of solar equip­ment on their home. The return on their invest­ment is shown as a cred­it on their elec­tric bill.

Mem­bers are sub­scrib­ing to the ener­gy pro­duced by the solar farm in rela­tion to the num­ber of kW units to which they sub­scribe.

The over­all pro­gram term is 20 years. The min­i­mum term par­tic­i­pa­tion is 2 years, and requires a 30-day notice of can­cel­la­tion.

A mem­ber must sub­scribe to at least 1 kW unit, but can­not sub­scribe to more than 5 kW units.

While the cost of installing solar pan­els on a home varies great­ly from house to house, YEC has attempt­ed to keep the Com­mu­ni­ty Solar pric­ing in line with the aver­age cost of putting solar pan­els on a home.

YEC will use tax cred­its asso­ci­at­ed with the Com­mu­ni­ty Solar pro­gram which are fig­ured into the pro­gram’s pric­ing.

Yes! If your sub­scrip­tion pro­duces more ener­gy than your home con­sumes in one month, you will see a cred­it on your account, regard­less of the amount.

If the com­mu­ni­ty solar arrays are dam­aged dur­ing a storm, mem­bers will receive a pro­por­tion­ate share of the ener­gy pro­duced by any non-dam­aged pan­els while repairs are made.

Mem­bers sub­scribe to the out­put from YEC’s com­mu­ni­ty solar site for a 20-year peri­od, choos­ing the num­ber of kilo­watt (kW) units for their sub­scrip­tion. One kW unit will pro­duce approx­i­mate­ly 150 kWh per month. You can add more kW units at any time, as long as they are avail­able.

When ener­gy pro­duc­tion begins, you will receive a por­tion of the pro­duc­tion from the solar com­mu­ni­ty each month, based on the num­ber of kW unit sub­scrip­tions on your account.

Mem­bers pay a por­tion of the cost per kW unit upfront, then a month­ly sub­scrip­tion fee is charged as a line item on the elec­tric bill. The cor­re­lat­ing out­put of the sub­scribed kW units is cred­it­ed back to the mem­ber at 10¢ per kWh. Mem­bers pay a one-time $30 admin­is­tra­tive fee for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gram.

• Sub­scrip­tions Upfront Charge: $100 per kW
• Month­ly Unit Charge: $12 per kW sub­scrip­tion
• Month­ly Cred­it: 10¢ per kWh
• One-time $30 admin­is­tra­tive fee

Any YEC mem­ber in good stand­ing may par­tic­i­pate in the Com­mu­ni­ty Solar pro­gram on a first come, first served basis. This excludes res­i­den­tial net meter­ing and Advance Pay accounts.

YEC’s com­mu­ni­ty solar array pro­duces approx­i­mate­ly 50 kW per month, which is rough­ly equiv­a­lent to the ener­gy used by 7 aver­age homes in YEC’s ser­vice area. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to note that solar pro­duc­tion will vary from month to month based on weath­er and time of year.

If a Com­mu­ni­ty Solar mem­ber moves from one home served by YEC to anoth­er home served by YEC, the solar ener­gy sub­scrip­tion moves with the mem­ber.

If a mem­ber moves out of YEC’s ser­vice area, the sub­scrip­tion will ter­mi­nate; the upfront charge paid upon begin­ning the pro­gram is not refund­able.

[KGVID width=“100%” height=“NaN”]https://www.yorkelectric.net/wp-content/uploads/YEC-Underground-Power-Line-Safety.mp4[/KGVID]

[KGVID width=“100%” height=“NaN”]https://www.yorkelectric.net/wp-content/uploads/YEC-Downed-Power-Line-Safety.mp4[/KGVID]

[KGVID width=“100%” height=“NaN”]https://www.yorkelectric.net/wp-content/uploads/YEC-Downed-Line-on-Vehicle-Safety.mp4[/KGVID]

[KGVID width=“100%” height=“NaN”]https://www.yorkelectric.net/wp-content/uploads/YEC-Lineworker-Safety-Gear.mp4[/KGVID]

[KGVID width=“100%” height=“NaN”]https://www.yorkelectric.net/wp-content/uploads/YEC-Electricity-Flow.mp4[/KGVID]

[KGVID width=“100%” height=“NaN”]https://www.yorkelectric.net/wp-content/uploads/YEC-Circuits-Explained_compressed.mp4[/KGVID]

• It saves cus­tomers mon­ey. Fill­ing up an elec­tric vehi­cle is cheap­er than fuel­ing a tra­di­tion­al car.
• The envi­ron­ment will ben­e­fit. Wide­spread adop­tion of elec­tric vehi­cles will cut emis­sions.
• Ener­gy inde­pen­dence. Elec­tric vehi­cles reduce our depen­dence on for­eign oil and will lead to more local jobs.

On site at our main head­quar­ters, 1385 East Alexan­der Love High­way, York, SC

A lot can change in a year, but based on cur­rent fuel prices, prob­a­bly 4 years. There are more mod­els becom­ing avail­able and as bat­tery prices improve, the time­frame could short­en.

• Back in 2007, YEC began col­lect­ing data.
• YEC also col­lab­o­rat­ed with Duke on their plans and data col­lec­tion; Duke ener­gy cur­rent­ly has one of the nation’s largest fleets of plug-in elec­tric vehi­cles and plug-in hybrid elec­tric cars for research and devel­op­ment pur­pos­es. This includes vehi­cles from Toy­ota, Tes­la, Ford, Gen­er­al Motors, Chrysler, Nis­san, and the Southeast’s first plug-in hybrid elec­tric util­i­ty “buck­et” truck.
• In 2013, YEC devel­oped an over­all elec­tric vehi­cle plan to include beta sites for in-home charg­ers and spe­cial elec­tric rates to incen­tivize vehi­cle charg­ing on non-peak times.
• In 2014, YEC imple­ment­ed an elec­tric-vehi­­cle rate.

Drink only approved or chlo­ri­nat­ed water. Con­sid­er all water from wells, cis­terns, and oth­er deliv­ery sys­tems in the dis­as­ter area unsafe until test­ed. Pur­chase bot­tled water, if nec­es­sary, until you are cer­tain that your water sup­ply is safe. Keep a 3‑day sup­ply of water or a min­i­mum of 3 gal­lons of water per per­son.

Dis­card all food that came in con­tact with flood­wa­ters, includ­ing canned goods. It is impos­si­ble to know if con­tain­ers were dam­aged and the seal com­pro­mised. Dis­card wood­en cut­ting boards, plas­tic uten­sils, baby bot­tle nip­ples, and paci­fiers. There is no way to safe­ly clean them if they have come in con­tact with con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed flood­wa­ters. Thor­ough­ly wash met­al pans, ceram­ic dish­es, and uten­sils with hot soapy water and san­i­tize by boil­ing them in clean water or by immers­ing them for 15 min­utes in a solu­tion of 1 tea­spoon of chlo­rine bleach per quart of water.

Dis­card food that has been near a fire. Food exposed to fire can be dam­aged by the heat of the fire, smoke fumes, and chem­i­cals used to fight the fire.

Food in cans or jars may appear to be okay, but the heat from a fire can acti­vate food spoilage bac­te­ria. If the heat is extreme, the cans or jars them­selves can split or rup­ture, ren­der­ing the food unsafe.

One of the most dan­ger­ous ele­ments of a fire is some­times not the fire itself, but tox­ic fumes released from burn­ing mate­ri­als. Dis­card any raw food or food in per­me­able pack­ag­ing — card­board, plas­tic wrap, screw-topped jars, bot­tles, etc. — stored out­side the refrig­er­a­tor. Food stored in refrig­er­a­tors or freez­ers can also become con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by fumes. The refrig­er­a­tor seal isn’t air­tight and fumes can get inside.

Chem­i­cals used to fight the fire con­tain tox­ic mate­ri­als and can con­t­a­m­i­nate food and cook­ware. Food that is exposed to chem­i­cals should be thrown away; the chem­i­cals can­not be washed off the food. This includes food stored at room tem­per­a­ture, such as fruits and veg­eta­bles, as well as food stored in per­me­able con­tain­ers like card­board and screw-topped jars and bot­tles. Cook­ware exposed to fire-fight­­ing chem­i­cals can be decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by wash­ing in soap and hot water. Then sub­merge for 15 min­utes in a solu­tion of 1 tea­spoon chlo­rine bleach per quart of water.

No. Frozen food can thaw if it is exposed to the sun’s rays, even when the tem­per­a­ture is very cold. Refrig­er­at­ed food may become too warm, and food­borne bac­te­ria could grow. The out­side tem­per­a­ture could vary hour by hour, and the tem­per­a­ture out­side will not pro­tect refrig­er­at­ed and frozen food. Addi­tion­al­ly, per­ish­able items could be exposed to unsan­i­tary con­di­tions or to ani­mals. Ani­mals may har­bor bac­te­ria or dis­ease; nev­er con­sume food that has come in con­tact with an ani­mal.

Rather than putting the food out­side, con­sid­er tak­ing advan­tage of the cold tem­per­a­tures by mak­ing ice. Fill buck­ets, emp­ty milk car­tons or cans with water and leave them out­side to freeze. Then put the home­made ice in your refrig­er­a­tor, freez­er, or cool­ers.

Nev­er taste food to deter­mine its safe­ty! You will have to eval­u­ate each item sep­a­rate­ly. If an appli­ance ther­mome­ter was kept in the freez­er, read the tem­per­a­ture when the pow­er comes back on. If the appli­ance ther­mome­ter stored in the freez­er reads 40°F or below, the food is safe and may be refrozen. If a ther­mome­ter has not been kept in the freez­er, check each pack­age of food to deter­mine the safe­ty. Remem­ber, you can’t rely on appear­ance or odor. If the food still con­tains ice crys­tals or is 40°F or below, it is safe to refreeze.

Refrig­er­at­ed food should be safe as long as pow­er is out no more than 4 hours. Keep the door closed as much as pos­si­ble. Dis­card any per­ish­able food (such as meat, poul­try, fish, eggs, and left­overs) that have been above 40°F for 2 hours.

Yes, the food may be safe­ly refrozen if the food still con­tains ice crys­tals or is at 40°F or below. You will have to eval­u­ate each item sep­a­rate­ly. Be sure to dis­card any items in either the freez­er or the refrig­er­a­tor that have come into con­tact with raw meat juices. Par­tial thaw­ing and refreez­ing may reduce the qual­i­ty of some food, but the food will remain safe to eat. 

Extreme tem­per­a­tures can put extra strain on your heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tem, which can lead to high­er bills. Find help­ful tips for sav­ing ener­gy and mon­ey on our ener­gy effi­cien­cy page. You can also pre­pare for tem­per­a­ture changes and bill fluc­tu­a­tion through­out the year by sign­ing up for Lev­elized Billing.

Even just one extra per­son shar­ing your home can increase your ener­gy usage and month­ly bill. Check out help­ful ways to save ener­gy and mon­ey on our ener­gy effi­cien­cy page.

Though swim­ming pools and hot tubs can be a great addi­tion for your home, their extra ener­gy usage can quick­ly add up. Save ener­gy and mon­ey by using an ener­­gy-effi­­cient pump, using a cov­er when not in use and by main­tain­ing your fil­ter and clean­ing sys­tem. Learn more about mak­ing your home ener­­gy-effi­­cient on our ener­gy effi­cien­cy page. 

A smart ther­mo­stat is a pro­gram­ma­ble ther­mo­stat that con­nects to your home’s WiFi and gives you the abil­i­ty to adjust your ther­mo­stat set­ting to fit your sched­ule and save ener­gy. Inter­est­ed? Learn more about York Electric’s Smart Ther­mo­stat Pro­gram.

Yes. York Elec­tric offers a free in-home ener­gy audit. All you have to do is call our mem­ber ser­vices depart­ment at 803–684‑4248 and tell them you are inter­est­ing in sched­ul­ing one.

The ide­al set­ting is 78 degrees for cool­ing and 65 degrees for heat­ing.

Yes, it can. You can save by using your cur­rent spot­lights less, con­vert­ing your cur­rent spot­lights to 23 watt com­pact flu­o­res­cent spots, and by installing motion sen­sors so the lights only work when motion is detect­ed.

The val­ue of elec­tric­i­ty remains very high. The nation­al cost of elec­tric­i­ty today, when adjust­ed for infla­tion, is less than what it was in 1980. Very few com­modi­ties have remained such a good val­ue. Com­pared to oth­er con­sumer prod­ucts and ser­vices, elec­tric­i­ty is a bar­gain.

Con­serv­ing ener­gy is always a good idea. York Elec­tric has a free 101 low-cost/no-cost home ener­gy sav­ings mea­sures brochure. Vis­it one of our offices to pick up a copy or view and/or down­load here. Also, vis­it TogetherWeSave.com and take the home tour to learn what actions you can take to save on your ener­gy bill.

They are Sharp pan­els and were made in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee.

Approx­i­mate­ly 50KWH per day (on good days). On a good day, the solar pan­els will be able to sup­ply the Fort Mill office and also put extra on the grid. YEC is putting all the elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed back on the grid instead of tying it back to the office. The pan­els have the poten­tial to gen­er­ate approx­i­mate­ly half of the office’s use for a year.

The pro­ject­ed cost, which San­tee Coop­er is pro­vid­ing with monies gen­er­at­ed from Green Pow­er, is $35,449.

York Elec­tric’s Trade a Tree Pro­gram helps mem­bers replace trees that must be removed by the co-op to ensure ser­vice reli­a­bil­i­ty. York Elec­tric’s employ­ees involved in the co-op’s right-of-way main­te­nance effort will vis­it mem­bers’ homes to deter­mine if trees near co-op lines need to be removed. If so, they may issue a coupon. The mem­ber will redeem the coupon at one of the par­tic­i­pat­ing nurs­eries: Lee’s Nurs­ery and Pen­land Tree Farm. For more infor­ma­tion about this pro­gram, call (803) 684‑4248 and speak to one of our mem­ber ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Imme­di­ate­ly call York Elec­tric’s mem­ber ser­vices depart­ment at (803) 684‑4248. We will send some­one out to eval­u­ate the sit­u­a­tion. Nev­er try to trim trees near pow­er lines!

Yes. Over­head lines can be changed to under­ground for a fee at the request of the mem­ber. In order to deter­mine how much it will cost, one of our engi­neers will need to come to your prop­er­ty to eval­u­ate the sit­u­a­tion. Please con­tact our mem­ber ser­vices depart­ment at (803) 684‑4248 to sched­ule an appoint­ment.

The WPCA is used to “adjust” the amount charged to mem­bers when the price of fuels to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty spike and fall over time. Fuel cost adjust­ments can be addi­tions or sub­trac­tions depend­ing upon how much York Elec­tric’s whole­sale pow­er provider had to pay for gen­er­a­tion fuels. It is not a fee to pay for fuel for York Elec­tric’s vehi­cles.

A dual-fuel heat pump is an elec­tric heat pump and a gas fur­nace all in one. In South Car­oli­na, where tem­per­a­tures are typ­i­cal­ly above freez­ing, a heat pump is the most effi­cient way to heat your home. In those few instances when the tem­per­a­ture drops below freez­ing, a gas fur­nace pro­vides heat more eco­nom­i­cal­ly. By com­bin­ing the two, you can have the ben­e­fits of both sys­tems.

A$700 rebate for the first sys­tem and $200 for each addi­tion­al sys­tem are avail­able for instal­la­tion of dual-fuel heat pumps. Rebates are sub­ject to approval and the incen­tive is for the prop­er­ty own­er only. For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact our mem­ber ser­vices depart­ment at (803) 684‑4248.

If you notice that an out­door secu­ri­ty light installed by York Elec­tric appears to be out or func­tion­ing improp­er­ly, please noti­fy us imme­di­ate­ly by using our online Secu­ri­ty Light Out­age report form or by call­ing our mem­ber ser­vices depart­ment at (803)684‑4248.

York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive awards ten $1,000 schol­ar­ships to high school seniors each May. You do have to be a mem­ber of YEC to com­pete for this schol­ar­ship. Stu­dents must have aver­age or above-aver­age grades and sub­mit an essay. The down­load­able appli­ca­tion is avail­able here. Appli­ca­tions can also be picked up at high school guid­ance offices.

It’s your pow­er, it’s your Coop­er­a­tive. So, where does your elec­tric­i­ty come from, any­way?

 

1. 1. Pow­er is gen­er­at­ed. Gen­er­a­tion sources vary, but the major­i­ty of the pow­er con­sumed by YEC mem­bers comes from coal and nuclear plants.
   2. A large trans­former increas­es the elec­tric volt­age to trav­el over long dis­tances.
   3. Elec­tric­i­ty is sent to demand areas over trans­mis­sion lines. The trans­mis­sion lines serv­ing YEC are either 100,000 volts or 44,000 volts.
   4. Trans­mis­sion lines enter sub­sta­tions so that the volt­age can be decreased and safe­ly dis­trib­uted to YEC mem­bers. YEC main­tains 27 sub­sta­tions to serve mem­bers in 4 coun­ties.
   5. YEC is a dis­tri­b­u­tion coop­er­a­tive, dis­trib­ut­ing elec­tric­i­ty at 7,200 volts to more than 57,000 mem­bers on over 4,000 miles of ener­gized line.
   6. Elec­tri­cal volt­age is stepped down again by anoth­er trans­former so that it can be used to pow­er elec­tri­cal devices in your home. The stan­dard volt­age is 240.
   7. As you con­sume elec­tric­i­ty, YEC mea­sures the amount of ener­gy you use from a meter mount­ed out­side your home. The more you con­serve ener­gy, the more mon­ey you save on your pow­er bill.

•  

•  

•  

•  

•  

•  

Your Green Pow­er charge will be list­ed on your month­ly elec­tric bill as an addi­tion­al line item.

Rates are set by York Elec­tric’s Board of Direc­tors and are sub­ject to change.

York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive pur­chas­es pow­er for our mem­ber-own­ers from San­tee Coop­er. The Pow­er Con­tent Label shows the resource mix pro­ject­ed for this year from San­tee Coop­er.

There is no ter­mi­na­tion fee.

None.

Green Pow­er is elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed by renew­able resources like the sun and methane gas that is found in land­fills. These resources are replen­ished nat­u­ral­ly. Green Pow­er is gen­er­at­ed by San­tee Coop­er and dis­trib­uted by elec­tric coop­er­a­tives across the state.

Green Pow­er pro­vides you a direct oppor­tu­ni­ty to help our envi­ron­ment by sup­port­ing elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed from renew­able pow­er sources. By vol­un­tar­i­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Green Pow­er pro­gram, you and York Elec­tric are prov­ing your com­mit­ment to com­mu­ni­ty by help­ing improve the envi­ron­ment.

Each 100 kilo­­watt-hour block will add a mere $3 to your month­ly elec­tric bill. One block (100 kWh) is approx­i­mate­ly 10 per­cent of a typ­i­cal house­hold’s month­ly ener­gy use. There is no equip­ment to buy, and you won’t have to change your lifestyle one bit. You can sign up for as many blocks as you like, know­ing that you are doing your part in help­ing the envi­ron­ment and mak­ing renew­able resources and facil­i­ties a real­i­ty.

By trap­ping methane gas and turn­ing it into use­ful ener­gy, your elec­tric coop­er­a­tive is help­ing to rid the envi­ron­ment of a dan­ger­ous green­house gas. For­tu­nate­ly, as fuel, the gas is a renew­able ener­gy and has no waste. What’s more, for just 2 dimes a day Green Pow­er has the envi­ron­men­tal impact of not dri­ving a car for almost 3 months. (Source: EPA green­house gas equiv­a­len­cies cal­cu­la­tor using 200 kWh/month for the state of South Car­oli­na.)

Mem­ber Ser­vices Depart­ment: 803–684‑4248

Email

York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, Inc.
P.O. Box 150, York, SC 29745

Drop by: Any local mem­ber ser­vices office

Usage rate: Your res­i­den­tial rate plus $3 for each 100kWh block of Green Pow­er.

Tax­es and Fees: You must also pay all applic­a­ble fed­er­al, state, and local tax­es as well as any applic­a­ble fees.

• $86.50 2004 month­ly elec­tric­i­ty cost
• $ 3.00 Green Pow­er pre­mi­um
• $89.50 Total

The Green Pow­er Pro­gram is vol­un­tary. You can can­cel or change your par­tic­i­pa­tion in Green Pow­er at any time. There is no con­tract length.

There are cur­rent­ly 6 land­fill methane gas facil­i­ties in South Car­oli­na at Hor­ry Sol­id Waste Author­i­ty, Lee Coun­ty Land­fill SC, LLC, Rich­land Coun­ty Land­fill, Ander­son Region­al Land­fill SC, LLC, George­town Coun­ty Land­fill, and Berke­ley Coun­ty Land­fill. The land­fills have a com­bined total installed capac­i­ty of 30 MW. Also, there are 3 Green Pow­er Solar demon­stra­tion projects in the state at Grand Strand Solar Sta­tion in Myr­tle Beach, SC, Coastal Car­oli­na Uni­ver­si­ty in Con­way, SC, and The Tech­ni­cal Col­lege of the Low­coun­try in Bluffton, SC. With 28 school-based, solar pow­er sites through­out the state, we’re doing more to than spear­head­ing the effort to con­vert sun­light into clean, pol­lu­­tion-free elec­tric­i­ty for all of our cus­tomers. We’re edu­cat­ing tomor­row’s lead­ers about the oppor­tu­ni­ties and lim­i­ta­tions of solar pow­er. We are also explor­ing appli­ca­tions for small­er wind tur­bines onshore, and in Novem­ber 2010, San­tee Coop­er made his­to­ry as the first util­i­ty to install a wind tur­bine and con­nect it to the grid. The 2.4 kW Skys­tream wind tur­bine is locat­ed ocean­front in North Myr­tle Beach.

South Carolina’s Green Pow­er plant col­lects methane gas that would nor­mal­ly be released into the atmos­phere – gas­es that pos­si­bly con­tribute to glob­al warm­ing – to be used as “green pow­er” fuel.

Renew­able resources pro­duce lit­tle or no air pol­lu­tion or waste. Bet­ter yet, some of them actu­al­ly reduce air pol­lu­tion and ben­e­fit the envi­ron­ment.

All rev­enue from the sale of Green Pow­er is rein­vest­ed in future devel­op­ment of renew­able ener­gy resources such as solar ener­gy and edu­ca­tion­al projects such as Solar Schools.

The renew­able ener­gy that you will be pur­chas­ing is not direct­ly rout­ed to your home, but by sub­scrib­ing you are help­ing to sup­port the pur­chase of addi­tion­al clean ener­gy and encour­ag­ing more invest­ment statewide in envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly ways to gen­er­ate pow­er. For every envi­ron­­men­­tal­­ly-friend­­ly kilo­watt hour pur­chased by coop­er­a­tive mem­bers, one less kilo­watt hour is being pur­chased from oth­er less envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly sources such as coal-based ener­gy.

The next sched­uled Hon­or Flight, spon­sored by The Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tives of South Car­oli­na, will depart Colum­bia, S.C. on April 11, 2012. The flight leaves Colum­bia by 8 a.m. and returns around 8 p.m.

Any Amer­i­can vet­er­an who served in the armed forces dur­ing World War II who has not pre­vi­ous­ly been on an Hon­or Flight. Pref­er­ence will be giv­en to mem­bers of elec­tric coop­er­a­tives and their fam­i­lies, but all vet­er­ans are urged to apply.

Elec­tric co-ops in S.C. have donat­ed the mon­ey to make this trip pos­si­ble.

There is no cost to vet­er­ans. The flight is fund­ed through dona­tions by South Car­oli­na’s elec­tric coop­er­a­tives.

Yes. Arrange­ments can be made for most spe­cial needs, includ­ing wheel­chair bound and oxy­gen depen­dent indi­vid­u­als. Sev­er­al physi­cians will be on the flight to assist the vet­er­ans through­out the day. We encour­age all vet­er­ans to apply.

No. How­ev­er, vet­er­ans may have a guardian. Guardians are the care­tak­ers of the vet­er­ans for the day. Spous­es are not per­mit­ted to be guardians, but oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers are.

Yes. A child, grand­child, niece, nephew, or oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers or friends are encour­aged to apply to be guardians.

You may mail in the appli­ca­tion print­ed in the Jan­u­ary edi­tion of South Car­oli­na Liv­ing Mag­a­zine, or you can apply online at scliving.coop.

Yes. The flight will depart from the Colum­bia Met­ro­pol­i­tan Air­port. You will be respon­si­ble for your own trans­porta­tion to and from the air­port.

There is room for approx­i­mate­ly 100 vet­er­ans on the flight.

Appli­ca­tions will be accept­ed on a first-come, first-served basis. Hon­or Flight per­son­nel will con­tact you soon after your appli­ca­tion is received.

Yes. There will be anoth­er Hon­or Flight in May of 2012. We will do every­thing we can to make sure you are a part of that trip. Hon­or Flight’s goal is to give every WWII vet­er­an the chance to par­tic­i­pate.

Make your check payable to: Hon­or Flight of SouthnnMail Check to: Hon­or Flight of South Car­oli­na P.O. Box 292421 Colum­bia, SC 29229

Vet­er­ans will enjoy a tour of Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and vis­its to the WWII, Kore­an, Viet­nam and Iwo Jima memo­ri­als and mon­u­ments. The WWII vet­er­ans are also spe­cial guests at Arling­ton Ceme­tery, and they observe the Chang­ing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

There is no dead­line; we will accept appli­ca­tions until the plane is full. How­ev­er, please sub­mit an appli­ca­tion at your ear­li­est con­ve­nience to ensure you have a spot on the flight. A fam­i­ly mem­ber is wel­come to sub­mit an appli­ca­tion on your behalf if you are unable to do so.

You may vis­it honorflightsc.com, or con­tact Bet­sy Hix with The Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tives of South Car­oli­na, Inc., at betsy.hix@ecsc.org or (803) 739‑3024.

Hon­or Flight of South Car­oli­na is part of the Hon­or Flight Net­work, which takes World War II vet­er­ans to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., to see and expe­ri­ence the Nation­al World War II Memo­r­i­al. A char­tered flight takes the vets to our nation’s cap­i­tal for a one-day tour. In addi­tion to vis­it­ing the WWII memo­r­i­al, vet­er­ans see the Kore­an, Viet­nam and Iwo Jima memo­ri­als and mon­u­ments. The vet­er­ans are spe­cial guests at Arling­ton Ceme­tery where they observe the Chang­ing of The Guard at the Tomb of The Unknowns.

Any walk-in mem­bers in our York of Fort Mill office loca­tions who have a com­pat­i­ble device.

Please con­tact your finan­cial insti­tu­tion for help.

Oth­er trou­bleshoot­ing tips:

• Make sure your device has the min­i­mum com­pat­i­ble require­ments.
• Make sure your device is up-to-date with the lat­est sys­tem upgrades.

Do you have authen­ti­ca­tion set up on your device?

• Authen­ti­ca­tion must be enabled to use mobile device pay­ments.

• Sam­sung Pay — Fin­ger­print, PIN or iris
• Apple Pay — FaceID or fin­ger­print
• Google Wal­let — Fin­ger­print, PIN, pat­tern or pass­word
•  

Learn more by vis­it­ing the appro­pri­ate sup­port sites here:

• https://www.samsung.com/us/samsung-pay/compatible-cards/#bank
• https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204916
• https://pay.google.com/about/banks/

• Sam­sung Pay
• Apple Pay
• Google Wal­let

Set up a pay­ment profile through our free YEC Mobile App and then pay by:

Tex­ting: Text JOIN to 352667, then fol­low the instruc­tions to pay.

YEC App: Pay through our free YEC Mobile App.

Online: At yorkelectric.net.

By phone: Call (866) 374‑1234.

Yes! All crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion is encrypt­ed in every trans­ac­tion run through the Apps, and no per­son­al infor­ma­tion is stored on your mobile device. How­ev­er, mobile devices do offer you the abil­i­ty to store your login infor­ma­tion for apps installed on the device. If you choose to store your login infor­ma­tion, any per­son who has access to your mobile device can access your account.

No. Our Mobile App is com­plete­ly free to down­load and install.

Yes. From the list of accounts, either select the option to pay all accounts, or select spe­cif­ic accounts for your pay­ment. You can also make a pay­ment to a sin­gle account by select­ing the pay­ment option when that spe­cif­ic accoun­t’s details are dis­played.

The infor­ma­tion you see in the Mobile App is shown in real-time, so it’s always accu­rate. How­ev­er, if you keep your Mobile App open for an extend­ed peri­od of time, you should refresh the page by select­ing a new option in order to ensure the infor­ma­tion is still cur­rent.

Our App will dis­play PDF ver­sions of your avail­able bills using the PDF read­er you have on your smart device. We sup­port and rec­om­mend the Adobe PDF read­er for the best results on Android devices. On Android devices, if you do not have the Adobe PDF read­er already installed, our App will prompt you to install it from the Android Mar­ket to ensure you are able to dis­play and view your PDF bills cor­rect­ly.

You do not have to log in to view address­es or maps to our office loca­tions or even to get our con­tact infor­ma­tion. Sim­ply open the App and use the “Loca­tions” link at the bot­tom of the login screen.

Our Mobile Apps are native Apps that can be down­loaded and installed on your com­pat­i­ble mobile device, while a Mobile Web App is a web por­tal that runs direct­ly in the mobile brows­er on your smart phone or oth­er mobile device. The native Apps give you secure access to main­tain your account infor­ma­tion, to view your bills and your pay­ment his­to­ry, to man­age your alerts and reminders, and to make pay­ments on one or more accounts direct­ly from your mobile device.

The native Apps also allow you to reg­is­ter your accounts to receive push noti­fi­ca­tions for account mile­stones, such as an approach­ing or a missed due date. Push noti­fi­ca­tions are not avail­able through a Mobile Web App.

Our mobile apps are sup­port­ed on the fol­low­ing plat­forms:

Android 2.3.3 and up

iOS iOS 7.0 or lat­er

Yes. Once you’ve logged in, you’ll be direct­ed to a list of all of your accounts. To see the details for a spe­cif­ic account, sim­ply select that account and the details will dis­play above the list of accounts.

If you only have one account, the details for that account will show up as soon as you log in.

The first time you launch the App after installing it on your mobile device, you’ll be asked whether or not you want to enable push noti­fi­ca­tions for our App on your device. Select OK to enable push noti­fi­ca­tions. Next, be sure to select each indi­vid­ual account and enable the “Noti­fy” option for every account you want to receive push noti­fi­ca­tions on this spe­cif­ic device.

If you have our App installed on mul­ti­ple devices, don’t for­get to enable push noti­fi­ca­tions for your accounts on each device, as the push noti­fi­ca­tion set­tings for each account are device-spe­­cif­ic.

Our Mobile App is designed to give you fast, secure account access so you can eas­i­ly man­age your elec­tric ser­vice no mat­ter where you are. You can view your bal­ance, pay your bill, report an out­age, track your usage, mod­i­fy and main­tain your alerts and reminders, and stay con­nect­ed with us via Face­book, email, or phone.

Once the app is installed, you can search a map for the near­est office loca­tion and receive push noti­fi­ca­tions regard­ing your elec­tric ser­vice all on your smart devices.

Sim­ply look for our name in the App Store or in Google Play.

Our Mobile Apps are sup­port­ed on the fol­low­ing plat­forms:

• iOS (iPhone, iPod touch, and/or iPad)
• Android

Please apply as soon as you are able. The time­line will depend on whether your busi­ness has all the sup­port­ing doc­u­ments. If your business’s loca­tion requires a pow­er let­ter and/or build­ing per­mit, we will not be able to start ser­vice until you have sent the approval let­ter to YEC.

• $25.00 Ser­vice Acti­va­tion Fee (Non-Refund­able)
• $5.00 Mem­ber­ship Fee
• Secu­ri­ty Deposit (paid by cash, check, cred­it card, or mon­ey order)

• Exist­ing Loca­tions: Secu­ri­ty deposits are deter­mined based on the location’s pre­vi­ous aver­age month­ly bill.
• New Con­struc­tion: Secu­ri­ty deposits are deter­mined based on the location’s trans­former size.

• Busi­ness owner’s driver’s license
• Fed­er­al Tax Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Num­ber
• Pow­er let­ter and/or build­ing per­mit (depen­dent on your busi­ness location’s munic­i­pal­i­ty or coun­ty)

• York Coun­ty Plan­ning & Devel­op­ment requires busi­ness­es (that are not locat­ed with­in city lim­its) to obtain a pow­er let­ter and/or build­ing per­mit. This is need­ed by the coun­ty to eval­u­ate the use of your busi­ness, and the location’s zon­ing and build­ing codes.
• There is a pow­er let­ter guide with­in the appli­ca­tion. If you are not able to deter­mine if your busi­ness requires a let­ter, then please con­tact our Mem­ber Ser­vices Depart­ment at 803–684‑4248 (Mon­day Fri­day 8 am‑5 pm).
• Please con­tact York Coun­ty Plan­ning & Devel­op­ment at 803–909‑7200, and they will inform you on how to obtain a pow­er let­ter.

If you are open­ing a busi­ness in an exist­ing build­ing, there are some things you should know about York coun­ty’s build­ing & zon­ing reg­u­la­tions.

 

If you are open­ing a busi­ness in an exist­ing build­ing, you’ll need York Coun­ty’s build­ing & zon­ing reg­u­la­tion guide­lines.

New per­ma­nent res­i­den­tial ser­vices, includ­ing mobile homes, are not charged for sec­ondary under­ground ser­vice. Under­ground ser­vice can be installed upon request for barns, wells, shops, stor­age build­ings, and oth­er non-per­­ma­­nent res­i­dences, but a charge will be incurred by the mem­ber. This charge is deter­mined by YEC’s engi­neer­ing depart­ment. Chang­ing exist­ing over­head ser­vice to under­ground will incur a high­er charge. Under­ground ser­vice lines are more expen­sive to install than over­head ser­vices, but do not require as much main­te­nance.

Mem­bers of YEC are required to pay a one-time, non-refund­able mem­ber­ship fee of $5 and a ser­vice fee of $25. A secu­ri­ty deposit of $295 may be required, depend­ing on the appli­can­t’s cred­it his­to­ry, for res­i­den­tial ser­vice.

Res­i­den­tial Accounts – If no cred­it his­to­ry with YEC exists, the coop­er­a­tive will charge the $295 deposit. How­ev­er, there is a way to waive the deposit for res­i­den­tial ser­vice. YEC ver­i­fies the iden­ti­ty of new mem­bers through Online Util­i­ty Exchange; this process also gen­er­ates a cred­it check. If the iden­ti­ty check meets YEC stan­dards, then the deposit may be waived.

Com­mer­cial Accounts – Deposits must be paid on com­mer­cial accounts. Cred­it checks are not accept­ed for com­mer­cial accounts. Con­trac­tors build­ing sev­er­al homes are allowed to have one deposit for sev­er­al accounts, pro­vid­ed these accounts are kept cur­rent.

Res­i­den­tial Accounts – Res­i­den­tial deposits are refund­ed, if an excel­lent pay­ment his­to­ry (as defined by YEC) is main­tained, for 12 con­sec­u­tive months. The deposit is auto­mat­i­cal­ly cred­it­ed to the bill when the mem­ber meets the above-men­­tioned qual­i­fi­ca­tions, or it is applied towards the final bill. If there is any remain­ing deposit owed to the mem­ber, a check will be mailed; there­fore, it is impor­tant for YEC to have your for­ward­ing address.

Com­mer­cial Accounts – The deposit is applied to the final bill.

It depends on the cir­cum­stance; there­fore, YEC does not promise con­struc­tion com­ple­tion dates. If line con­struc­tion is nec­es­sary, YEC requires a min­i­mum notice of 10 work­ing days. In order to begin ser­vice the fol­low­ing is required: coun­ty per­mit, ser­vice order request, meter base installed, signed under­ground form, and mem­ber appli­ca­tion. Fail­ure to pro­vide these doc­u­ments may delay the process. Con­nec­tion for ser­vices, oth­er than tem­po­raries and agri­cul­tur­al uses, must have pow­er autho­riza­tion before YEC can set the meter. Oth­er fac­tors to con­sid­er when request­ing ser­vice:

• Weath­er can cause delays in the con­struc­tion process.
• Ser­vices in sub­di­vi­sions do not take as long to con­nect because the pri­ma­ry ser­vice is already installed.
• A new home, that has­n’t had pow­er before, may need to have right of way obtained or cleared. Also, poles may need to be set in order to get ser­vice to the home.

Con­tact local Help agen­cies. Down­load the Agency Help list PDF here

Con­tri­bu­tions to Oper­a­tion Round Up are tax deductible. In Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary, your util­i­ty bill will have a sum­ma­ry of the con­tri­bu­tions you made to Oper­a­tion Round Up dur­ing the pre­vi­ous year.

Oper­a­tion Round Up is a vol­un­tary con­tri­bu­tion on your elec­tric bill which adds a few pen­nies each month. The most you could ever donate in a year would be $12, but most mem­bers’ dona­tions are around $6 per year. These pen­nies are added togeth­er from all our par­tic­i­pat­ing mem­bers, and York Elec­tric’s Trust Board makes grants to non-prof­it agen­cies who are serv­ing needs in our com­mu­ni­ty. Since 2000, York Elec­tric’s mem­bers have raised approx­i­mate­ly $2.3 mil­lion, and we now have 62% mem­ber par­tic­i­pa­tion.

We make it easy. Sign up by call­ing our mem­ber ser­vices depart­ment at 803–684‑4248, and we’ll sim­ply round your elec­tric bill up to the next high­est dol­lar each month. The extra change — an aver­age of only 50 cents a month or $6 a year — is your con­tri­bu­tion to the pro­gram. If you wish to dis­con­tin­ue your con­tri­bu­tions at any time, sim­ply con­tact YEC.

After each quar­ter­ly meet­ing, our web­site is updat­ed with the cur­rent dis­po­si­tion state­ment. Also, we peri­od­i­cal­ly pub­lish updates about Oper­a­tion Round Up in South Car­oli­na Liv­ing mag­a­zine.

Your phar­ma­cy dis­counts are pro­vid­ed as part of your Co-op Con­nec­tions® pro­gram at no cost.

This plan is not insur­ance; it is a phar­ma­cy dis­count offer. The card pro­vides imme­di­ate dis­counts at the phar­ma­cy. Upon pre­sent­ing your card to the phar­ma­cist, you will pay the low­er of a dis­count­ed price or the phar­ma­cy’s reg­u­lar retail price. There are no forms to fill out and no lim­it to the num­ber of times you can use the card. These dis­counts are avail­able only at par­tic­i­pat­ing retail phar­ma­cies.

Your card can­not be used in con­junc­tion with insur­ance. How­ev­er, use your card to pur­chase pre­scrip­tions not cov­ered by your insur­ance plans at a dis­count­ed rate.

Yes. You will receive the best price avail­able to you through this pro­gram at the phar­ma­cy. On occa­sion, phar­ma­cies will price a par­tic­u­lar med­ica­tion low­er than the dis­count rate pro­vid­ed by the card. If that occurs, you will receive the low­er price.

Drug prices are dif­fer­ent from phar­ma­cy to phar­ma­cy. Even chains have dif­fer­ent prices in their stores depend­ing on the pop­u­la­tion they are ser­vic­ing. Addi­tion­al­ly, man­u­fac­tur­ers’ drug prices change peri­od­i­cal­ly.

The dis­counts save you 10% to 60% on pre­scrip­tions at over 56,000 phar­ma­cies nation­wide, includ­ing CVS, Wal­greens, Wal­mart, Tar­get, and more.

The Co-op Con­nec­tions card is accept­ed at over 60,000 retail phar­ma­cies nation­wide, includ­ing CVS, Wal­greens, Wal­mart, Tar­get, and more. You can find par­tic­i­pat­ing phar­ma­cy loca­tions at www.locateproviders.com.

Yes. If you know the name, strength, and quan­ti­ty of the med­ica­tion, you can find the dis­count­ed price of the med­ica­tion by vis­it­ing www.rxpricequotes.com.

YEC uses an auto­mat­ic phone answer­ing sys­tem to han­dle pow­er out­age reports. If your cor­rect phone num­ber is on file with our office, your phone call can be han­dled more effi­cient­ly. Hav­ing the cor­rect con­tact infor­ma­tion also allows us to make any fol­low-up calls to you about elec­tric ser­vice prob­lems. If your phone num­ber has changed since you signed up for your elec­tric ser­vice, please con­tact our mem­ber ser­vices depart­ment at 803–684‑4248.

This depends on the amount of dam­age sus­tained and cur­rent con­di­tions. Field per­son­nel must com­plete a dam­age assess­ment before any reli­able esti­mate can be made.

Some neigh­bor­hoods get elec­tric­i­ty from sev­er­al dif­fer­ent cir­cuits, so you may notice your lights are out, but your neigh­bors have pow­er. In such cas­es, the prob­lem could be orig­i­nat­ing from your house­’s elec­tric line, a par­tic­u­lar tap line, a main feed­er line, or at the sub­sta­tion. For us to deter­mine where the prob­lem orig­i­nates, it is extreme­ly impor­tant that you call 1–866–374‑1234 and report the out­age with your exact street address and cor­rect phone num­ber.

This may be an inci­dence of par­tial pow­er. At this point, mem­bers should unplug large/major appli­ances such as refrig­er­a­tors, ovens, air con­di­tion­ers, etc., as this could cause a pow­er fluc­tu­a­tion and result in anoth­er out­age. Once lights are bright, indi­cat­ing full pow­er has been restored, it is safe to plug in major appli­ances.

Many peo­ple think that the loud noise they heard was the sound of a trans­former explod­ing, due to light­ning or oth­er extreme con­di­tions. This was prob­a­bly not the case. The noise could have been a fuse blow­ing. YEC’s pow­er lines use fus­es in a sim­i­lar man­ner to the way you use fus­es in your home. These fus­es pro­tect parts of our dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem when severe weath­er strikes. The noise can be sub­stan­tial lead­ing many peo­ple to think some­thing has explod­ed. When report­ing an out­age, it is very help­ful when you tell us you heard a loud noise because it helps us iso­late the loca­tion of prob­lems on our lines.

You should first refer to your dis­as­ter plan and call your home health nurse and physi­cian. You should noti­fy your fam­i­ly and/or friends and call EMS espe­cial­ly if your sit­u­a­tion is life threat­en­ing. YEC reminds mem­bers who have extreme crit­i­cal health needs that require a con­tin­u­ous pow­er source dur­ing an out­age, to make arrange­ments before the cri­sis to relo­cate to a place where those needs can be met. Anoth­er option is to make per­son­al arrange­ments for a gen­er­a­tor to hook up to machines that have to be kept run­ning. Gen­er­a­tors should nev­er be hooked into a home or busi­ness’ elec­tric cir­cuit. Gen­er­a­tors should only be con­nect­ed direct­ly to crit­i­cal care machines or oth­er appli­ances.

Check for water sat­u­ra­tion of your ceil­ings and light fit­tings inside and out­side. If wet, call us imme­di­ate­ly. If there is no obvi­ous dam­age to your light fit­tings, turn off all but one light. Check the light­ing cir­cuit’s fuse or cir­cuit break­er oper­a­tion at your switch­board. Turn off your main switch and replace the fuse. Turn the main switch again. If the fuse blows, call YEC.

Lights being dim­mer than usu­al, hot plates slow to cook, and motors fail­ing to start are all indica­tive that there might be a prob­lem in the high volt­age sys­tem. If you observe any of these in your home, turn appli­ances off and unplug them. Leave a min­i­mum of lights on (such as a flu­o­res­cent) and call YEC.

Dur­ing times of mul­ti­ple pow­er out­ages, YEC con­cen­trates our ini­tial restora­tion efforts in the areas and on the pow­er lines that restore elec­tric­i­ty to the great­est num­ber of peo­ple in the short­est peri­od of time. We place empha­sis on vital com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices, emer­gency ser­vices, and pub­lic safe­ty. Please be patient, and we will restore your elec­tric ser­vice as soon as we pos­si­bly can.

Some smoke alarms are pow­ered by AC (alter­nat­ing cur­rent) and use a bat­tery back­up. When these units lose pow­er momen­tar­i­ly they may chirp sev­er­al times to inform you they are on back­up pow­er or are return­ing to main pow­er. For more infor­ma­tion, review the man­u­fac­tur­er’s doc­u­men­ta­tion on your type of alarm.

In a major storm, assume you may be with­out pow­er for some time. Turn off elec­tric appli­ances (like an iron or stove) so you won’t cre­ate a safe­ty haz­ard when the pow­er is turned back on. Remem­ber to include air-con­di­­tion­ing among appli­ances you turn off. Nev­er report haz­ardous sit­u­a­tions by e‑mail. Always call the office at 1–866–374‑1234 so we can respond imme­di­ate­ly!

If you receive a tin­gling sen­sa­tion from any elec­tri­cal appli­ances, turn off the elec­tric­i­ty imme­di­ate­ly. Do not make con­tact with or let any­one else near the sus­pect­ed appli­ance and call YEC.

If you notice unusu­al peri­od­ic vari­a­tions in the nor­mal bright­ness of your lights – some­times very bright, some­times dull – call us. These are symp­toms of a poten­tial­ly haz­ardous sit­u­a­tion. Turn off all your motors and appli­ances, and leave a min­i­mum of lights on.

Call 1–866–374‑1234. York Elec­tric encour­ages you to call our 24-hour ‘Pow­er­Touch’ out­age report­ing sys­tem so we can quick­ly locate where the prob­lem is occur­ring and send crews out right away. Any detailed infor­ma­tion you can sup­ply about the out­age is very ben­e­fi­cial in the trou­bleshoot­ing process. Note: Before report­ing the out­age, YEC rec­om­mends that you first check your main break­ers in your elec­tri­cal pan­el.

Momen­tary out­ages occur when a dis­tur­bance on the line is detect­ed. These dis­tur­bances could be caused by a light­ning strike, a squir­rel or tree branch con­tact­ing the line, or a downed line or out­age in a near­by area, etc. If a fault or short cir­cuit occurs on a pow­er line, a device called a reclos­er opens to stop it and then quick­ly clos­es. This device allows pow­er to con­tin­ue flow­ing through the line with only a brief inter­rup­tion of ser­vice rather than caus­ing an extend­ed pow­er out­age. Although the process is quick and usu­al­ly tem­po­rary, it may cause your lights to blink. If the short cir­cuit con­tin­ues, the reclos­er will oper­ate or ‘trip’ three times before even­tu­al­ly stop­ping the flow of elec­tric­i­ty and caus­ing a pow­er out­age. This process pro­tects the lines from dam­age by cut­ting off pow­er to the affect­ed sec­tion of the line and iso­lat­ing the prob­lem until it can be repaired.

We encour­age mem­bers to use 1–866–374‑1234 when­ev­er they have an out­age, but espe­cial­ly dur­ing wide­spread out­ages. This auto­mat­ed sys­tem can take many more calls than our employ­ees. An out­age noti­fi­ca­tion with all the per­ti­nent mem­ber and elec­tric dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem data need­ed to restore your pow­er is record­ed with­in sec­onds in our oper­a­tions cen­ter. It is extreme­ly impor­tant for YEC to have your up-to-date tele­phone num­ber — the one asso­ci­at­ed with your co-op account. Hav­ing your cor­rect phone num­ber will allow YEC to dis­patch crews as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

Call any time you have a pow­er out­age. We are here to serve you. Once you report the out­age, try not to call YEC or the auto­mat­ed out­age line again unless you have an emer­gency. Be assured our crews are doing every­thing pos­si­ble to restore your pow­er as soon as pos­si­ble. Unnec­es­sary calls pre­vent those who have not report­ed their out­age from get­ting through to report their out­age. Also, dupli­cate calls can gen­er­ate mul­ti­ple out­age records for the same loca­tion.

If you have med­ical equip­ment nec­es­sary to sus­tain life or avoid severe med­ical com­pli­ca­tions, it is impor­tant to noti­fy YEC and fol­low the prop­er steps to be list­ed as a Spe­cial Needs Pri­or­i­ty Account. Please click here to learn more. YEC urges mem­bers who are depen­dent on elec­tric­i­ty for med­ical rea­sons to have a dis­as­ter plan and make arrange­ments before a cri­sis to relo­cate to a place where those needs can be met. In the event of an out­age, always remem­ber to noti­fy your fam­i­ly and/or friends and call EMS, espe­cial­ly if your sit­u­a­tion is life threat­en­ing.

Lis­ten to emer­gency rec­om­men­da­tions pro­vid­ed by lead agen­cies such as local emer­gency man­age­ment, civ­il defense, Red Cross, or police. Fol­low their rec­om­men­da­tions.

YEC does not de-ener­­gize facil­i­ties because of antic­i­pat­ed dam­age such as flood­ing, ice or high winds. The dis­con­nect devices on elec­tri­cal equip­ment remain ener­gized until a storm caus­es them to oper­ate as designed and shut off cur­rent.

There could be sev­er­al rea­sons: Fus­es or cir­cuit break­ers in your home could have tripped; trees could have fall­en on your ser­vice; the trans­former that serves you could have a blown fuse or oth­er dam­age; the pri­ma­ry line could be de-ener­­gized because of dam­age; many YEC lines have more than one wire and your trans­former may be the only one con­nect­ed to the wire that is “dead”.

Once dam­age to major lines has been repaired, YEC will work on lines serv­ing indi­vid­u­als. At that time, we will deter­mine if an elec­tri­cian should fix the dam­age or if we can. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, YEC will repair prob­lems up to the weath­er­head on over­head ser­vice and up to the meter on under­ground ser­vice. Past these points, an elec­tri­cian is need­ed.

Once your ser­vice is restored every effort will be made to keep it on. Keep in mind, how­ev­er, that as we repair oth­er parts of the sys­tem, some inter­rup­tions may be required. In addi­tion, YEC works close­ly with coun­ty, city and state agen­cies. At their request, we may have to inter­rupt a cir­cuit if there is a fire or some oth­er emer­gency. And dur­ing ice storms, it is not uncom­mon for the weight of ice on the line or sur­round­ing trees to cause pow­er lines to break. If the storm con­tin­ues, a crew may restore your pow­er, and then, with the fur­ther accu­mu­la­tion of ice on the lines, your lines may break again.

No. YEC main­tains and oper­ates facil­i­ties in a man­ner cal­cu­lat­ed to pro­vide safe and reli­able ser­vice. Dur­ing abnor­mal weath­er, we make every effort to pro­vide con­tin­u­ous ser­vice, but can­not be respon­si­ble for com­plete or par­tial fail­ure or inter­rup­tion of ser­vice, or for fluc­tu­a­tions in volt­age from caus­es beyond our con­trol. Just pri­or to a storm, and dur­ing ear­ly stages of restora­tion, mem­bers may wish to turn off or lim­it use of elec­tron­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive and/or nonessen­tial appli­ances.

Over­head ser­vices are more exposed to ice, high winds and fly­ing debris. Under­ground facil­i­ties are sub­ject to flood­ing. Dam­age to an over­head trans­former is often eas­i­er to find. Dam­age to a pad mount­ed trans­former serv­ing under­ground cable may not be read­i­ly vis­i­ble. Under­ground lines are sus­cep­ti­ble to dam­age from dig­ging and trench­ing equip­ment. And the cost of installing and main­tain­ing under­ground con­duc­tor over hun­dreds of miles of sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed rur­al areas would result in an enor­mous increase in the cost of elec­tric­i­ty to you.

Restor­ing pow­er after wide­spread out­ages is a big job that involves more than sim­ply throw­ing a switch or remov­ing a tree from a line. The main goal is to safe­ly restore pow­er to the great­est num­ber of mem­bers in the short­est time pos­si­ble. In order to accom­plish this, the process begins with a dam­age assess­ment of the co-op’s lines and facil­i­ties by employ­ees who have been specif­i­cal­ly trained to accom­plish those tasks. The assess­ment allows YEC to direct its resources (both labor and mate­ri­als) to areas where they are need­ed the most.

If there is dam­age to pow­er plants, switch­yards, or trans­mis­sion lines, those facil­i­ties must be repaired by our pow­er sup­pli­er before we can restore your ser­vice. Trans­mis­sion lines sel­dom fail, but they can be dam­aged by storms. Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple could be served by a sin­gle high-volt­age trans­mis­sion line. When those facil­i­ties are work­ing, prob­lems in your co-op’s elec­tric dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem can be cor­rect­ed.

Sub­sta­tions are repaired first. When a major out­age occurs, the local dis­tri­b­u­tion sub­sta­tions are checked first. If the prob­lem can be cor­rect­ed at the sub­sta­tion lev­el, pow­er may be restored to a large num­ber of peo­ple. YEC has 24 sub­sta­tions on its sys­tem and there are over 3,500 miles of dis­tri­b­u­tion lines which are rout­ed from the sub­sta­tions.

Dis­tri­b­u­tion lines are repaired. Main dis­tri­b­u­tion sup­ply lines are checked next, if the prob­lem can­not be iso­lat­ed at the sub­sta­tion. These sup­ply lines car­ry elec­tric­i­ty away from the sub­sta­tion to a group of mem­bers, such as a sub­di­vi­sion. When pow­er is restored at this stage, all mem­bers served by this sup­ply line could see the lights come on, as long as there is no prob­lem far­ther down the line.

Indi­vid­ual ser­vices restored. The final sup­ply lines, called ser­vice lines, car­ry pow­er from the trans­former on util­i­ty poles or under­ground trans­form­ers out­side hous­es or oth­er build­ings. Line crews fix the remain­ing out­ages based on restor­ing ser­vice to the great­est num­ber of mem­bers. Some­times, dam­age will occur on the ser­vice line between your house and the trans­former on the near­by pole. This may explain why you have no pow­er when your neigh­bor does.

It prob­a­bly is because before ser­vice may be restored to you and your neigh­bors, work must be com­plet­ed at anoth­er loca­tion.

Restor­ing pow­er to homes and busi­ness­es is a top pri­or­i­ty for York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, but the safe­ty of our mem­bers and employ­ees always comes first – and it’s more impor­tant than ever to be cau­tious dur­ing extreme weath­er con­di­tions. For work­ers in buck­et trucks or attempt­ing to climb poles and tow­ers, high winds are very dan­ger­ous. Once a storm pass­es and winds drop to less than 30 miles per hour, we will safe­ly begin dili­gent­ly work­ing on out­ages and bring­ing you pow­er as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

YEC’s ser­vice ter­ri­to­ry includes some 3,500 miles of elec­tri­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion line in a four-coun­­ty region. Restora­tion time, there­fore, depends to a large degree on how many dif­fer­ent lines are sig­nif­i­cant­ly dam­aged. Severe dam­age to trans­mis­sion sys­tems would have the most dis­abling effect on restora­tion efforts.

Restor­ing pow­er to homes and busi­ness­es is a top pri­or­i­ty for York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, but the safe­ty of our mem­bers and employ­ees always comes first – and it’s more impor­tant than ever to be cau­tious dur­ing extreme weath­er con­di­tions. For work­ers in buck­et trucks or attempt­ing to climb poles and tow­ers, high winds are very dan­ger­ous. Once a storm pass­es and winds drop to less than 30 miles per hour, we will safe­ly begin dili­gent­ly work­ing on out­ages and bring­ing you pow­er as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

If dam­age from a storm exceeds our capa­bil­i­ty to restore ser­vice in a rea­son­able time, we will request crews from oth­er coop­er­a­tives. Elec­tric coop­er­a­tives work togeth­er to assist one anoth­er in times of need. In areas not affect­ed by the storm, only a min­i­mum crew will be left to han­dle calls. Mem­bers should expect rou­tine ser­vice request calls such as secu­ri­ty light repairs or meter con­nects to be delayed due to the storm.

Restor­ing pow­er to homes and busi­ness­es is a top pri­or­i­ty for York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, but the safe­ty of our mem­bers and employ­ees always comes first – and it’s more impor­tant than ever to be cau­tious dur­ing extreme weath­er con­di­tions. For work­ers in buck­et trucks or attempt­ing to climb poles and tow­ers, high winds are very dan­ger­ous. Once a storm pass­es and winds drop to less than 30 miles per hour, we will safe­ly begin dili­gent­ly work­ing on out­ages and bring­ing you pow­er as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

If you expe­ri­ence a pow­er out­age and have already checked your main break­er, you should always alert YEC of your loca­tion. Please report your pow­er out­age by call­ing Pow­er­Touch: 1–866–374‑1234, tex­ting OUTAGE to 352667, using our mobile app, or log­ging in to our Mem­ber Ser­vices por­tal.

You can’t! Con­sid­er all cables and wires ener­gized, whether elec­tri­cal, cable tele­vi­sion or tele­phone. After a storm any wire can be ener­gized if it falls or gets wrapped around an ener­gized line, whether a few feet or a block away. If a line is in water, there is even more rea­son to be cau­tious. Con­sid­er it and the water ener­gized. Learn more with our elec­tri­cal safe­ty videos.

Start by learn­ing about gen­er­a­tor safe­ty with our handy instruc­tions.

Con­nect­ing a portable or recre­ation­al vehi­cle (RV) gen­er­a­tor to home wiring can cause safe­ty prob­lems. Ide­al­ly, appli­ances should be direct­ly plugged into a gen­er­a­tor. If you must hook the gen­er­a­tor to the main elec­tric pan­el, it is very impor­tant to dis­con­nect your home from YEC’s elec­tri­cal sys­tem first. If not dis­con­nect­ed, pow­er can flow from your gen­er­a­tor into out­side util­i­ty lines and kill or injure crews work­ing on the lines — even some dis­tance away. You could even injure a neigh­bor if pow­er from your gen­er­a­tor flows along com­mon lines to anoth­er house.

When elec­tric ser­vice is restored to your area, dis­con­nect your gen­er­a­tor before turn­ing on pow­er to your home. If you don’t, the gen­er­a­tor can be dam­aged. When using a gen­er­a­tor, make sure it has prop­er ven­ti­la­tion. It should only be oper­at­ed out­side. Remem­ber the gen­er­a­tor’s rat­ed wattage is a func­tion of the num­ber of appli­ances it will pow­er. The wattage of lights or oth­er appli­ances run off the gen­er­a­tor as a total should not exceed the rat­ed wattage of the gen­er­a­tor. The man­u­fac­tur­er’s rec­om­men­da­tions must be fol­lowed for prop­er usage and load. If you have any doubts, con­sult a qual­i­fied elec­tri­cian.

One of our top pri­or­i­ties will be to remove trees and debris that have dam­aged elec­tri­cal equip­ment and are pre­vent­ing ser­vice restora­tion. Mem­bers should not attempt to remove or trim foliage with­in 10 feet of a pow­er line. If a tree or tree limbs have fall­en on a pow­er line or pulled it down, do not attempt to get close to the line. If the line is spark­ing, call YEC at 1–866–374‑1234 and report a downed line.

Learn more with our elec­tri­cal safe­ty videos.

No. Since YEC has no con­trol over dam­age done to facil­i­ties dur­ing storms or oth­er nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, mem­bers at large could not be expect­ed to pay for any indi­vid­ual mem­ber’s food that might spoil due to storm dam­age and result­ing from elec­tric ser­vice inter­rup­tions. Remem­ber, elec­tri­cal dis­tur­bances that cause you dam­age are like­ly to cause your coop­er­a­tive dam­age too, but on a much larg­er scale. One light­ing strike, for exam­ple, can cause equip­ment fail­ure to your coop­er­a­tive cost­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars. There­fore, we do all we can to rea­son­ably pro­tect the elec­tric sys­tem. You must do your part by pro­tect­ing your own equip­ment from any storm dam­age or loss of pow­er.

Learn the ABCDs of food han­dling and stor­age in an emer­gency with our handy Keep­ing Food Safe guide.

YEC works hard to update the local news media on the over­all progress of restora­tion efforts affect­ing the area. YEC issues infor­ma­tion releas­es to the news media regard­ing restora­tion progress dur­ing major pow­er out­ages. We also post live out­age updates and restora­tion progress on our Face­book Account. Check­ing YEC’s web­site and social media Pages via bat­tery-oper­at­ed web devices are the best ways for you to be informed of storm restora­tion progress. Be sure to have an emer­gency kit, equipped with a bat­tery-oper­at­ed radio and fresh bat­ter­ies, so you’re ready in case of a major pow­er out­age.

You could have a tripped cir­cuit break­er or blown fuse in your home­’s elec­tric pan­el, result­ing in par­tial ser­vice. If so, reset the break­er. You may also have a bro­ken con­nec­tor or wire at one of the ser­vice leads to your house. If so, call 1–866–374‑1234. Please take a moment to watch our video, How to Check Cir­cuit Break­ers.

Before call­ing to report an out­age:

• Check all cir­cuit break­ers or fus­es to help deter­mine if your ser­vice out­age might be the result of a house­hold prob­lem. Learn more in our video, How to Check Cir­cuit Break­ers.
• Call a licensed elec­tri­cian if you have sig­nif­i­cant water dam­age in your home that might make it unsafe or if the meter out­side your home or any of the pip­ing and wires on the wall of your home looked dam­aged.

The ROW is cleared by cut­ting, trim­ming, mow­ing and where per­mis­si­ble, apply­ing her­bi­cides. In most cas­es, all shrubs, brush and trees are removed under pri­ma­ry (main), over­head pow­er lines. They are also removed, as and around sec­ondary, low-volt­age pow­er lines that bring pow­er from the trans­former to your meter. Cut­ting and trim­ming are done by trained, pro­fes­sion­al util­i­ty tree trim­mers using spe­cif­ic and proven stan­dards typ­i­cal to the indus­try.

ROW refers to the cor­ri­dor or path­way an elec­tric line fol­lows, whether it’s along the road or through the woods. ROW pro­vides util­i­ty crews with access to lines for improve­ments, main­te­nance, and repairs. It also pro­vides an oper­a­tional safe­ty zone between the elec­tric lines and trees, build­ings, etc. On the major­i­ty of its lines, York Elec­tric holds ease­ments that give it the right to clear land 15 feet from either side of the wire.

A clear ROW min­i­mizes out­ages, improves pow­er qual­i­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty, and safe­ty.

• Caus­es pow­er out­ages
• Caus­es lights to blink
• Obstructs visu­al inspec­tions, mak­ing repairs dif­fi­cult and cost­ly
• Blocks access for main­te­nance and repairs, caus­ing delays
• Wastes elec­tric­i­ty by draw­ing it to the ground
• Becomes a fire haz­ard
• Becomes a safe­ty haz­ard for util­i­ty work­ers and mem­bers
• Chil­dren and adults should nev­er climb, trim, or touch trees that con­tact pow­er lines!

York Elec­tric’s ROW main­te­nance pro­gram bal­ances the preser­va­tion of nat­ur­al habi­tats against the ser­vice reli­a­bil­i­ty needs of our mem­bers and the safe­ty needs of the gen­er­al pub­lic. In fact, it can actu­al­ly ben­e­fit the ecosys­tem and oth­er nat­ur­al envi­ron­ments. ROW main­te­nance efforts cre­ate open areas that encour­age the growth of wild­flow­ers, ferns, grass­es, flow­ers, berries, and oth­er low-grow­ing shrubs.

Any YEC res­i­den­tial mem­bers who have a reli­able WiFi inter­net con­nec­tion in their home.

Whomev­er you choose. After the ther­mo­stat is installed and we ver­i­fy the sig­nal, YEC will reim­burse you $75 towards your instal­la­tion cost. You will also be required to pro­vide your receipt.

When the coop­er­a­tive pur­chas­es pow­er, ener­gy at those peak hours is more expen­sive. The more we can cut down on how much ener­gy is used dur­ing those peri­ods, the low­er our pow­er bill will be. We will use that sav­ings to hold down costs for our mem­bers.

1. You must be a mem­ber of York Elec­tric;
2. You must sign the par­tic­i­pa­tion agree­ment;
3. You must have an inter­net-con­nec­t­ed, Wi-Fi enabled home.

A smart ther­mo­stat is a pro­gram­ma­ble ther­mo­stat that con­nects to your home­’s WiFi and gives you the abil­i­ty to adjust your ther­mo­stat set­ting to fit your sched­ule and save ener­gy.

About 5–6 times per month, the ther­mo­stat will be adjust­ed remote­ly based on sys­tem-wide peak peri­ods.

The events will be 4 hours total, which includes a one-hour pre-cool/pre-heat peri­od and three hours of peak-sav­ing adjust­ment. The con­trol will fol­low this pat­tern:

Pre-cool­ing/pre-heat­ing: +/- 2 degrees
First hour: +/- 2 degrees
Sec­ond hour: +/- 3 degrees
Third hour: +/- 4 degrees

SUMMER EXAMPLE

If you nor­mal­ly have your ther­mo­stat set to 75, a typ­i­cal con­trol event begin­ning at 3 p.m. would look like this:

3:00–4:00 p.m.: Ther­mo­stat adjust­ed to 73
4:00–5:00 p.m.: Ther­mo­stat adjust­ed to 77
5:00–6:00 p.m.: Ther­mo­stat adjust­ed to 78
6:00–7:00 p.m.: Ther­mo­stat adjust­ed to 79
After 7 p.m.: Ther­mo­stat returns to 75, con­trol relin­quished

WINTER EXAMPLE

If you nor­mal­ly have your ther­mo­stat set to 67, a typ­i­cal con­trol event begin­ning at 6 a.m. would look like this:

6:00–7:00 a.m.: Ther­mo­stat adjust­ed to 69
7:00–8:00 a.m.: Ther­mo­stat adjust­ed to 65
8:00–9:00 a.m.: Ther­mo­stat adjust­ed to 64
9:00–10:00 a.m.: Ther­mo­stat adjust­ed to 63
After 10 a.m.: Ther­mo­stat returns to 67, con­trol relin­quished

Mem­bers who pur­chase a smart ther­mo­stat will need to par­tic­i­pate in at least 60 per­cent of peak events through­out the year to receive $100 after one year. If you con­tin­ue to par­tic­i­pate in 60 per­cent of peak events, you will also receive $50 year­ly.

You’ll be noti­fied of con­trol dur­ing peak times on the device’s dis­play with an option to over­ride. You can over­ride con­trol up to 40 per­cent of the time. If you were to exceed 40 per­cent, a mem­ber is not eli­gi­ble for par­tic­i­pa­tion cred­it per year.

If you already have a smart ther­mo­stat, please enroll it here.

York Electric’s smart ther­mo­stat pro­gram gives mem­bers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pur­chase an ecobee smart ther­mo­stat at a dis­count­ed rate. Mem­bers can also bring their own eli­gi­ble smart ther­mostats. By par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gram, mem­bers will agree to allow the coop­er­a­tive to con­trol the ther­mo­stat dur­ing peak peri­ods.

Please con­tact Brent Clin­ton at Brent.Clinton@yorkelectric.net or Shane Bak­er at Shane.Baker@yorkelectric.net if you wish to opt out of con­trolled ther­mo­stat use dur­ing peak peri­ods.

An ecobee Smart Ther­mo­stat Advanced will be dis­count­ed to $90 for YEC mem­bers, and an ecobee Smart Ther­mo­stat Pre­mi­um will be dis­count­ed to $145 for YEC mem­bers.

York Elec­tric mem­bers can pur­chase the ecobee Smart Ther­mo­stat Advanced or ecobee Smart Ther­mo­stat Pre­mi­um. Both have dig­i­tal touch­screen dis­plays and both can be con­trolled and sched­uled using a com­put­er or device (phone or tablet).

Both accom­plish the same tasks, but the ecobee Smart Ther­mo­stat Pre­mi­um has Ama­zon Alexa built-in. It is voice-acti­­vat­ed and has many of the fea­tures that come with Ama­zon Echo devices. The ecobee also comes with an added room sen­sor to pro­vide more effec­tive cool­ing and heat­ing.

It’s easy to get start­ed.

1. Com­plete and sign the par­tic­i­pa­tion agree­ment (PDF down­load below) and bring it into our York head­quar­ters or Fort Mill office to pur­chase the ther­mo­stat of your choice; see options below.
2. Or apply online here

Not at all. The sun’s ener­gy is a great, clean resource which we should uti­lize.

Yes! If your sub­scrip­tion pro­duces more ener­gy than your home con­sumes in one month, you will see a cred­it on your account, regard­less of the amount.

Every year the cost of solar ener­gy sys­tems decreas­es. Even with these decreas­es, the cost jus­ti­fi­ca­tion is heav­i­ly depen­dent upon gov­ern­ment tax cred­its. Present­ly pay­back ranges between 9 and 12 years, but this could change dras­ti­cal­ly if incen­tives were to increase or decrease.

Come by one of our offices or call our mem­ber ser­vices depart­ment at 803–684‑4248 for spe­cif­ic details and pric­ing.

Log on to our Mem­ber Por­tal to update your account infor­ma­tion.

Stan­dard text mes­sag­ing rates will apply.

First, make sure your cell phone num­ber is pop­u­lat­ed in the mobile num­ber option on your mem­ber pro­file. All data is pulled from what we have on file, so be sure to keep it cur­rent. Next, sim­ply text JOIN to 352667 and fol­low the prompts. If your cell phone num­ber is already in the data­base, you will need to text START to begin receiv­ing alerts. Reply STOP to can­cel and opt-out at any time. Mes­sage and data rates may apply.

HELP – pro­vides you with the con­tact infor­ma­tion to our mem­ber ser­vices team and our web­site.

STOP – opts you out of future mes­sages.

BAL – pro­vides the cur­rent bal­ance on your account.

PAY – will process pay­ment by con­nect­ing to your online pay­ment pro­file. Please note, you must add a pay­ment pro­file on the online Mem­ber Por­tal before this fea­ture will work.

OUTAGE – will report a pow­er out­age at your loca­tion.

CALL – pro­vides the phone num­ber to con­tact our mem­ber ser­vices team.

Reply STOP to can­cel and opt-out at any time. Mes­sage and data rates may apply.

Approx­i­mate­ly 1,500 of the 3,500 miles of line YEC has are under­ground. The major­i­ty of new lines we install annu­al­ly are under­ground, and we see this trend con­tin­u­ing as this has become the norm for new res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial devel­op­ments.

While we do replace some over­head lines with under­ground ser­vice through­out the year, it would be too much of a finan­cial impact on the mem­ber­ship to replace our exist­ing 2,000 miles of line under­ground. It is esti­mat­ed to cost hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars and would take more than 10 years to com­plete. The impact on the rates we charge you, our mem­bers, would be tremen­dous. YEC’s line­men are exten­sive­ly cross-trained in all areas of oper­a­tion. It would not have a neg­a­tive impact on them.

The min­i­mum require­ment for ceil­ing insu­la­tion is R‑30, but the rec­om­men­da­tion is R‑38–49. Prop­er insu­la­tion can cut ener­gy costs by as much as half! Also, con­sid­er insu­lat­ing out­side walls, attics, spaces between floors, around heat­ing ducts and pipes that are exposed to the ele­ments. Insu­late nooks and cran­nies such as wall out­lets, gaps in sid­ing and around the foun­da­tion, and holes around pipes, ducts, and exhaust fans.

Elec­tric coop­er­a­tives were first formed in the 1930s when it became evi­dent that estab­lished pow­er com­pa­nies were not ready to sup­ply pow­er to peo­ple liv­ing in rur­al Amer­i­ca. The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment estab­lished the Rur­al Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (REA) to lend mon­ey for the con­struc­tion of pow­er lines out­side pop­u­la­tion cen­ters. Farm­ers and oth­er rur­al res­i­dents formed coop­er­a­tives to bor­row mon­ey from the REA and con­struct the need­ed lines.

YEC was found­ed in 1941 by a group of farm­ers and busi­ness­men who real­ized that the only way to bring elec­tric pow­er to rur­al York Coun­ty was to do it them­selves. In March of 1941, 553 strong, these cit­i­zens began an endeav­or that would change rur­al liv­ing in this area for­ev­er.

YEC’s capac­i­ty to sup­ply depend­able and afford­able elec­tric pow­er also opened our rur­al areas to com­merce and indus­try. New and diver­si­fied busi­ness­es came to the coun­try­side, pro­vid­ing jobs, prod­ucts, and ser­vices.

Since 1941, YEC has been an active com­mu­ni­ty part­ner and a dynam­ic force in the area’s eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. We con­tin­ue to serve the homes, farms, and small busi­ness­es in our rur­al areas, but we now also serve a grow­ing num­ber of res­i­den­tial, com­mer­cial, and large indus­tri­al accounts in York Coun­ty’s expand­ing pop­u­la­tion cen­ters.

York Elec­tric’s ser­vice ter­ri­to­ry con­tin­ues to be one of the fastest-grow­ing areas in the Unit­ed States.

Momen­tary out­ages occur when a dis­tur­bance on the line is detect­ed. These dis­tur­bances could be caused by a light­ning strike, a squir­rel or tree branch con­tact­ing the line, or a downed line or out­age in a near­by area, etc. If a fault or short cir­cuit occurs on a pow­er line, a device called a reclos­er opens to stop it and then quick­ly clos­es. This device allows pow­er to con­tin­ue flow­ing through the line with only a brief inter­rup­tion of ser­vice rather than caus­ing an extend­ed pow­er out­age. Although the process is quick and usu­al­ly tem­po­rary, it may cause your lights to blink. If the short cir­cuit con­tin­ues, the reclos­er will oper­ate or ‘trip’ three times before even­tu­al­ly stop­ping the flow of elec­tric­i­ty and caus­ing a pow­er out­age. This process pro­tects the lines from dam­age by cut­ting off pow­er to the affect­ed sec­tion of the line and iso­lat­ing the prob­lem until it can be repaired.

Caus­es of Pow­er Out­ages & Blinks
[KGVID]https://www.yorkelectric.net/wp-content/uploads/StraightTalkAlert-Causes-of-Power-Outages-and-Blinks.mp4[/KGVID]

YEC is com­mit­ted to build­ing high-speed fiber inter­net net­works as soon as South Car­oli­na elec­tric-coop­er­a­­tives receive fed­er­al fund­ing. Oth­er SC elec­tric coop­er­a­tives com­mit­ted to doing so include Mid-Car­oli­­na Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, Blue Ridge Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, San­tee Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, New­ber­ry Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, Pal­met­to Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, Tri-Coun­­ty Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, Pee Dee Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive.