RELIABLE POWER FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW

By: Mark Walling, CEO

Ring­ing in a new year sparks a sense of renewed hope and opti­mism about the future. As the CEO of Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, for me, it’s a time to reflect on where we are and where we’re going. At the heart of this reflec­tion, I think about ways we can bet­ter serve you, the mem­bers of the coop­er­a­tive.

Our team at CEC is always look­ing ahead, explor­ing ways to inno­vate and uti­lize new tech­nolo­gies to improve our ser­vices. As our nation increas­ing­ly relies on elec­tric­i­ty to pow­er the econ­o­my, keep­ing the lights on has nev­er been more impor­tant. We’re com­mit­ted to powering––and empowering––our com­mu­ni­ty at a cost local fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es can afford.

So how are we work­ing to ensure reli­able and afford­able pow­er while adapt­ing to a chang­ing ener­gy land­scape and our community’s evolv­ing needs?

One crit­i­cal com­po­nent of reli­able pow­er is the mix of ener­gy resources used to gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty that keeps the lights on across Low­coun­try area.  You may not real­ize it, but CEC doesn’t gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty. Instead, we pur­chase it from our ener­gy provider, San­tee Coop­er, and from there, we dis­trib­ute it to homes and busi­ness­es through­out our com­mu­ni­ty.

We’re increas­ing­ly using more elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed from renew­able ener­gy sources, but we still depend on a diverse ener­gy mix to ensure reli­able pow­er that’s avail­able to our mem­bers when­ev­er they need it.

In addi­tion to man­ag­ing a reli­able ener­gy mix, CEC is using tech­nol­o­gy to enhance our local grid, lim­it ser­vice dis­rup­tions and improve out­age response times.

Advanced meter­ing tech­nol­o­gy, also known as AMI, enables two-way com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the co-op and con­sumers. In the event of a pow­er out­age, AMI helps pin­point the exact loca­tion of the out­age and can even ana­lyze dam­aged or tam­pered meters. AMI helps CEC save mon­ey with real-time data, and ulti­mate­ly improves pow­er reli­a­bil­i­ty for our entire com­mu­ni­ty.

Proac­tive tree trim­ming is anoth­er way we lim­it ser­vice dis­rup­tions. Sched­uled trim­ming keeps pow­er lines clear from over­grown limbs that are like­ly to fall. Drone inspec­tions of lines and veg­e­ta­tion have allowed us to reduce labor and equip­ment costs while bol­ster­ing reli­a­bil­i­ty. Through the use of small drones, we can accu­rate­ly mon­i­tor the health and growth of trees and iden­ti­fy poten­tial prob­lems. As tech­nol­o­gy advance­ments become more acces­si­ble, we antic­i­pate using advanced map­ping soft­ware to bet­ter main­tain the envi­ron­ment while pro­vid­ing more reli­able ser­vice.

One of the best meth­ods for improv­ing our ser­vices to you is mon­i­tor­ing trends and lead­ing prac­tices from oth­er elec­tric co-ops in South Car­oli­na and across the coun­try. Learn­ing from oth­er co-ops is one of the many ben­e­fits of the coop­er­a­tive busi­ness mod­el because for us, it’s about coop­er­a­tion, not com­pe­ti­tion.

As we turn our focus to 2024, CEC will con­tin­ue work­ing to pro­vide the reli­able, afford­able elec­tric­i­ty you expect and deserve––for today and tomor­row.