Touchdown! Annual Meeting recap, YEC accomplishments

This past month, marked anoth­er mile­stone for your coop­er­a­tive as we cel­e­brat­ed 84 years of ser­vice and host­ed yet anoth­er suc­cess­ful annu­al meet­ing. With thou­sands of mem­bers par­tic­i­pat­ing at both our York and Tega Cay loca­tions, your con­tin­ued sup­port and engage­ment are the foun­da­tion for every­thing we do. This issue high­lights our 2025 annu­al meet­ing, as well as the progress we have made togeth­er to keep your co-op strong. I hope it is evi­dent that one sim­ple com­mit­ment guides York Electric’s actions: look­ing out for you.

Through 2024’s lead­er­ship tran­si­tions, severe weath­er events and indus­try chal­lenges, our team’s ded­i­ca­tion remained con­stant. Last year, we com­plet­ed thou­sands of con­struc­tion jobs, main­tained the sys­tem that pow­ers your home and busi­ness­es and answered tens of thou­sands of calls.

Along­side serv­ing our mem­bers with excel­lence, we con­tin­ue to prac­tice care­ful finan­cial plan­ning. Since 2019, the cost of essen­tial mate­ri­als, such as under­ground cable and trans­form­ers, has more than dou­bled and lead times have stretched to near­ly a year. Even after the rise of mate­r­i­al and whole­sale pow­er costs, your co-op’s con­trol­lable expens­es con­tin­ue to be among the low­est of any South Car­oli­na util­i­ty, and even in the coun­try. Through strong finan­cial man­age­ment, York Elec­tric absorbed near­ly half of 2024’s 11% whole­sale pow­er cost increase.

While we are proud of our wise use of the co-op’s resources, we had to take new mea­sures to con­tin­ue serv­ing you with the safe, reli­able ser­vice that you expect and deserve. This Feb­ru­ary, a 6% rate change went into effect. I want to be clear that this deci­sion was not made light­ly, and it cer­tain­ly was not made for prof­it. After a decade of sta­ble rates, this adjust­ment was nec­es­sary to con­tin­ue cov­er­ing the cost of doing busi­ness.

This past month’s Cap­i­tal Cred­it return demon­strates your co-op’s con­tin­ued finan­cial strength. We returned $2.7 mil­lion in Cap­i­tal Cred­its to mem­bers who received ser­vice in 2004, 2005 or 2023.

This past year also brought some of York Electric’s great­est chal­lenges, includ­ing the impact of Hur­ri­cane Helene. The storm knocked out pow­er to more than 34,000 mem­bers, rough­ly half of our entire sys­tem. Thanks to our ded­i­cat­ed staff, con­tract crews and in-state and out-of-state mutu­al aid linework­ers, all out­ages were restored in six days. This event remind­ed us of what sets coop­er­a­tives apart: Local peo­ple show­ing up for each oth­er.

York Elec­tric con­tin­ues to sup­port its com­mu­ni­ty through Oper­a­tion Round Up and The Bur­rell Foun­da­tion, pro­vid­ing assis­tance where it is need­ed most. In 2024, local non­prof­its received near­ly $400,000 from mem­bers through Oper­a­tion Round Up. Through The Bur­rell Foun­da­tion, we dis­trib­uted more than $80,000 to indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies in cri­sis.

If you missed our annu­al meet­ing, you can watch a full record­ing of our busi­ness meet­ing, view elec­tion results and check out this year’s prize win­ners on our Annu­al Meet­ing page. There, you can view our annu­al report and audit­ed finan­cial posi­tion.

Thank you for your con­tin­ued trust. As always, your co-op remains focused on what mat­ters most: look­ing out for you.