York Electric Cooperative, Inc.

Improvements

Updates on improvements, maintenance, and safety

YEC continually invests in improved service and reliability for members. York Electric Cooperative has been fortunate to experience tremendous growth in its service territory with new residential subdivisions, as well as business and industry development. In response, your cooperative is continually investing in new technology and system upgrades to ensure a reliable, affordable and safe energy future for our members. We’re always looking ahead and looking out for you.

Here are some of the ongoing updates to our distribution system we’re undertaking to improve service and reliability.

Showing map of YEC improvement areas
YEC serves more than 66,000 members in York, Chester, Cherokee and Lancaster counties, outlined in purple (above right). A portion of our service territory is outlined in blue and enlarged (above left).

Clover Substation Upgrades: Smart devices and new equipment are being installed to help increase reliability and outage restoration efforts.

Ogden Substation Upgrades: Smart devices and new equipment are being installed to help increase reliability and outage restoration efforts.

New Transmission Line: A new 100 kilovolt transmission line to serve our Flint Hill Substation is underway. YEC’s Flint Hill Substation will be completely dismantled in the fall of 2022 and rebuilt with more capacity, smarter equipment, and greater reliability. The work is scheduled to be completed during the spring of 2023. Construction started last month in July with grading.

N. Lancaster Substation Improvements: YEC is building a double circuit extension along Doby Bridge Road. This work increases YEC’s capacity to serve more members and improve service reliability.

Banks Street Improvement: Pole improvements and larger wire will be installed along Banks Street in Fort Mill to increase YEC’s capacity to serve more members and improve service reliability.

Rural Internet Project: Our Rural Internet Project is projected to be completed by summer of 2023. Through our partnership with Comporium, we will bring high-speed internet service availability to more than 5,000 unserved members in the area shown.

New Substations: YEC is building the Allison Creek Substation (blue star on map) and Springmaid Substation (green star on map) to meet growing demand and improve reliability in those areas.

Right of Way updates

Trimming continues across our service territory to keep trees and brush away from distribution lines. Not only does this increase reliability, but it also helps keep us safe in an outage situation. Crews will be working in the York area in the coming months, followed by parts of Kings Mountain State Park.

To see the details and view the planning maps, visit our Right of Way maintenance page.

Summer storm safety

Since 1941, we’ve been committed to keeping your lights on, rain or shine. We also want you to know your house will be cool, your phones will be charged and, most importantly, the electricity you use is safe. Despite our best efforts to prevent power outages, including our year-round process of trimming our rights-of-way and constant system improvements and testing, the weather sometimes has different plans.

During the summer months, severe thunderstorms are a common occurrence that can lead to extensive damage and extended outages. When storm-related outages sweep our territory, we want you to be prepared and know how to stay safe. That’s why we’ve updated our online Storm Center—a valuable library of information on emergency preparedness, YEC’s power restoration efforts, outage reporting methods and more. Help ensure you and your family stay safe this summer storm season by visiting our Storm Center.

Continuous improvement

New project underscores YEC’s unblinking focus on service reliability

Paul Basha, YEC President & CEO
Paul Basha, President & CEO

It has been said, “Never neglect an opportunity for improvement.”

When it comes to improving the reliability of our electric service, we never miss an opportunity at YEC. We’ve recently undertaken a project in northern and western York County that will greatly improve service reliability for approximately 4,700 of our members.

YEC has worked with Duke Energy representatives to have an old transmission line, owned by Duke, rebuilt in the Bethany area. Work on a major section of this 44,000-volt (44KV) transmission line began in March. This line serves several substations in northern and western York County, from which power is distributed to YEC’s members.

Old poles are being replaced with steel towers which are double in height to strengthen a 4.7-mile section of line.
Old poles are being replaced with steel towers which are double in height to strengthen a 4.7-mile section of line.

Tall steel structures will replace old wood poles and enhance reliability of this transmission line. About 140 wood poles have been removed so far, with 46 steel structures set along 4.7 miles of line between the Bethany and Biggers Branch communities.

Plans are for the work to continue this fall with the same improvements being made on two other sections of this line, one between the Clover and Bethany communities, the other between the Biggers Branch community and the 99 Island hydroelectric dam in Cherokee County.

As big as the job is, it’s just one corner of the big picture here at York Electric Cooperative. We have about 44,000 member accounts along some 3,500 miles of line. All along the way, we’re always looking out for you, the members. We constantly seek to improve our response times to outages and to reduce power interruption times.

Reliability and safety are what our employees focus on each day. I personally am very thankful for our employees who work to deliver reliable service to you each day, no matter what the temperature is outside. Next time you see one of our employees tell him or her thank you for me.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve—and to continually improve.

Paul Basha

Paul Basha
President and Chief Executive Officer