People Behind the Power: 2023 Year in Review

/ Cooperative News / 8 minutes of reading

The elec­tric­i­ty that pow­ers homes and busi­ness­es across coastal Geor­gia … where does it come from? Fuel, poles and wire, pow­er plants, solar pan­els, substations—all those are cer­tain­ly cor­rect.

A lineman works on heavy equipmentUlti­mate­ly, pow­er comes from peo­ple. Peo­ple gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty our soci­ety relies on every day. And who are these Peo­ple Behind the Pow­er? Line­men, engi­neers, sys­tem plan­ners, pow­er plant oper­a­tors. These peo­ple make it hap­pen.

But elec­tric coop­er­a­tive employ­ees aren’t the only ones. The true Peo­ple Behind the Pow­er sit in your seat at the movie the­ater, push your cart at the gro­cery store, turn on your dish­wash­er and pack your kid’s lunch. They park beside you at the ball­park, run city coun­cil meet­ings and vol­un­teer at the food bank down the street. You—Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive mem­bers and owners—are the rea­son we do what we do. You are our moti­va­tion to bring the pow­er that makes coastal Geor­gia a bet­ter place to live. You, your friends, your neigh­bors … you are tru­ly the Peo­ple Behind the Pow­er.

Annu­al reviews like the one you hold in your hand are, at their core, finan­cial doc­u­ments, and for good rea­son. Num­bers tell a pow­er­ful sto­ry about the health and pri­or­i­ties of an orga­ni­za­tion. But behind every dol­lar, every chart, every bal­ance sheet, you’ll find peo­ple. As an elec­tric co-op, we exist to serve our mem­bers. So every deci­sion, every dol­lar spent and saved, every­thing we stew­ard, is done with you in mind.

Keep scrolling to learn more about the sto­ries behind the num­bers from the past year and how those num­bers sup­port our mis­sion to meet or exceed our mem­ber-own­ers’ expec­ta­tions by being an out­stand­ing provider of ener­gy ser­vices.

Co-op workers are seen enjoying a barbecue

GROWTH

Growth comes with its share of chal­lenges. How­ev­er, the more mem­bers that set­tle on our sys­tem, the more costs can be shared among the mem­ber­ship, for the good of all. Our sys­tem is grow­ing by approx­i­mate­ly 600-plus new per­ma­nent ser­vices each year.

DEMOCRATIC MEMBER CONTROL

Coop­er­a­tives are demo­c­ra­t­ic orga­ni­za­tions con­trolled by their mem­bers, who active­ly par­tic­i­pate in set­ting poli­cies and mak­ing deci­sions, accord­ing to Coop­er­a­tive Prin­ci­ple 2. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (in our case, direc­tors) are elect­ed from among the mem­ber­ship and are account­able to the mem­ber­ship. Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive is led by a mem­ber-elect­ed board of nine direc­tors, who are also co-op mem­bers them­selves. Each direc­tor serves a three-year term before they are up for reelec­tion to be vot­ed on by their fel­low mem­bers.

Workers give a thumbs up to the camera

Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive mem­bers exer­cise their mem­ber rights to vote every year dur­ing Annu­al Meet­ing reg­is­tra­tion and vot­ing. The result? You have a voice in how your coop­er­a­tive oper­ates and who is mak­ing deci­sions on your behalf. It’s just one ben­e­fit of being a mem­ber and own­er of an elec­tric co-op ver­sus any oth­er type of util­i­ty com­pa­ny … a lit­tle some­thing we like to call the coop­er­a­tive advan­tage.

  • 2,477 mem­bers par­tic­i­pat­ed in Annu­al Meet­ing reg­is­tra­tion and vot­ing dur­ing the three days pri­or to the 2023 Annu­al Meeting—the largest num­ber ever par­tic­i­pat­ing
  • 3 direc­tors were reelect­ed to rep­re­sent the mem­bers of Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive
  • 9 direc­tors serve on the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive board, rep­re­sent­ing the 4 coun­ties we serve

DIVERSE, RELIABLE FUEL MIX

In July 2023, Vog­tle Unit 3 reached com­mer­cial oper­a­tion, mark­ing a his­toric achieve­ment for the ener­gy indus­try, Geor­gia and the entire nation. The exist­ing units at Plant Vogtle—Units 1 and 2— have been pro­vid­ing safe, clean ener­gy for Geor­gians for more than 34 years. Our invest­ment in the Plant Vog­tle con­struc­tion project is an invest­ment in reli­able, emis­sions-free ener­gy for our mem­bers— now and for the future.

We depend on a vari­ety of fuels to gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty that pow­ers life 24/7. Renew­able ener­gy sources like wind and solar are key play­ers in our fuel port­fo­lio, but the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. A diverse team of fuels helps ensure our mem­bers have elec­tric­i­ty when­ev­er you need it.

Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive did not raise rates in response to the Plant Vog­tle project in 2023. Our mem­ber-elect­ed board of direc­tors and co-op staff planned ahead for the time that Unit 3 would come online and fac­tored the costs into our finan­cial plan­ning.

  • 60–80 years of emis­sions-free nuclear ener­gy
  • 1st advanced com­mer­cial nuclear project in the Unit­ed States in more than 3 decades
  • 0 rate hikes for Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive to pay for the new Unit 3

SAFETY SAVES LIVES & MONEY

While pro­tect­ing the safe­ty of employ­ees and the pub­lic is the pri­ma­ry goal of work­place safe­ty and train­ing, Coastal Elec­tric Cooperative’s stel­lar safe­ty record also trans­lates into sig­nif­i­cant sav­ings for the coop­er­a­tive and our mem­bers.

A lineworker poses by a co-op truckWhen an injury does occur, the costs go beyond emer­gency room vis­its and doc­tor appoint­ments. Indi­rect costs, such as admin­is­tra­tive time deal­ing with the injury, increas­es in insur­ance pre­mi­ums, hir­ing replace­ment employ­ees and even loss of rep­u­ta­tion can add up to four times the direct cost of the injury.

With­out a moti­vat­ed, trained and effec­tive work­force, con­sid­er­able extra time and expense would be need­ed to accom­plish our mis­sion. So safe­ty is not only good for co-op employ­ees, but it is also ben­e­fi­cial for co-op mem­bers and our com­mu­ni­ty.

  • 10 years with 0 fatal­i­ties or injuries at all requir­ing employ­ees to miss work
  • 67 employ­ees worked 149,842 hours to serve co-op mem­bers

SATISFACTION AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH

In 2023, Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive received its all-time high Amer­i­can Cus­tomer Sat­is­fac­tion Index (ACSI®) score of 90 on a 100-point scale.

The score is among the top three scores earned by ener­gy util­i­ty coop­er­a­tives par­tic­i­pat­ing in mea­sure­ment for Touch­stone Ener­gy in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2023. Touch­stone Ener­gy Coop­er­a­tives rep­re­sents a nation­wide alliance of more than 700 mem­ber-owned elec­tric co-ops across 46 states.

The top five scores in that peri­od ranged from 88 to 92, which com­pares favor­ably with elec­tric coop­er­a­tives’ annu­al aver­age score of 74, as report­ed in the 2022–23 ACSI Ener­gy Util­i­ties Study.

Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive has always strived for excel­lence, but this recog­ni­tion from mem­bers is cause for cel­e­bra­tion.

* Com­pared to pub­licly mea­sured ener­gy util­i­ties in the ACSI® sur­vey of cus­tomers rat­ing their own ener­gy util­i­ty. Results based on data pro­vid­ed by Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, col­lect­ed between July-August 2024. ACSI did not reg­u­late the sur­vey admin­is­tra­tion or sam­ple size. ACSI and its logo are reg­is­tered trade­marks of the Amer­i­can Cus­tomer Sat­is­fac­tion Index LLC. For more about the ACSI, vis­it www.theacsi.org.

MEMBERS GET MONEY BACK

One unique prac­tice of the co-op busi­ness mod­el is retir­ing cap­i­tal cred­its. When mem­ber rev­enues exceed costs, those mar­gins become the member’s equi­ty in the coop­er­a­tive. When the finan­cial strength of the coop­er­a­tive allows, the board of direc­tors can order the return of a por­tion of that equi­ty.

Video: Capital credits are just one of the many benefits of co-op membership.Those who pay bills to Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive are more than customers—they are mem­bers. Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive has no need to gen­er­ate prof­its, so mem­bers’ elec­tric bills col­lec­tive­ly cov­er what is need­ed to sup­ply pow­er to their homes and busi­ness­es, from gen­er­at­ing the pow­er at plants and buy­ing lines and poles that deliv­er elec­tric­i­ty to main­tain­ing equip­ment to keep ser­vice reli­able and com­pen­sat­ing employ­ees who make it all hap­pen.

When the co-op’s elect­ed board of direc­tors deter­mines it is finan­cial­ly fea­si­ble, Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive retires excess mar­gins back to mem­bers who have paid their elec­tric bills.

  • $2 mil­lion+ in cap­i­tal cred­its retire­ments to mem­bers in 2023
  • $13 mil­lion+ in cap­i­tal cred­its retire­ments to date

CO-OP PROGRAMS SAVE MEMBERS MONEY

As a not-for-prof­it coop­er­a­tive, we offer pro­grams designed to help mem­bers save mon­ey and man­age their ener­gy use. Because of our com­mit­ment to Coop­er­a­tive Prin­ci­ple 5— Edu­ca­tion, Train­ing and Information—we also strive to edu­cate our mem­bers about indus­try trends, ener­gy effi­cien­cy and wise ener­gy invest­ments.

For exam­ple, through our Coop­er­a­tive Solar pro­gram, the aver­age house­hold that sub­scribed to two blocks (4kW) of Coop­er­a­tive Solar in 2023 saved enough mon­ey to get more than a free month’s worth of elec­tric­i­ty.

A ded­i­cat­ed ener­gy advis­er on staff spoke with many mem­bers inter­est­ed in rooftop solar to edu­cate them on the pros and cons, as well as the cost and sav­ings esti­mates if they decid­ed to invest in rooftop solar.

We rolled out our option­al Time-of-Use rate in 2023 and have installed 78 cus­tomized Time-of-Use meters for mem­bers inter­est­ed in sav­ing mon­ey through the use of off-peak ener­gy.

  • $313.70 saved per mem­ber who signed up for 2 blocks (4kW) of Coop­er­a­tive Solar
  • 78 Time-of-Use meters installed for mem­bers
  • More than 1,500 mem­bers took advan­tage of Advance Pay in 2023
  • 586 mem­bers par­tic­i­pat­ed in our Coop­er­a­tive Solar program—a jump from 443 in 2022
  • 50 new res­i­den­tial solar sys­tems added to our sys­tem
  • 145 miles of right-of-way clear­ing com­plet­ed to rein­force elec­tric sys­tem reli­a­bil­i­ty

BRINGING RURAL BROADBAND

Coastal Fiber crews con­tin­ued to focus their efforts on bring­ing broad­band inter­net to under­served areas of Lib­er­ty Coun­ty in 2023. After com­plet­ing the Trade­port East area of Inter­state 95 ear­ly in the year, ser­vice became avail­able to sev­er­al key indus­tri­al cus­tomers.

Coastal Fiber logoCon­struc­tion of the Mid­way fiber hut began in ear­ly 2023, and the last work orders for the area were released in Novem­ber 2023, result­ing in 66 total miles of fiber suc­cess­ful­ly being con­struct­ed and 1,048 poten­tial cus­tomers con­nect­ed from Bacon­town Road to Lewis Frasi­er Road, and up to the Flem­ing Short­cut Store on High­way 196.

Next, crews began con­struct­ing the tie between the Mid­way and Daniel Sid­ing fiber huts. Now com­plete, this span includes 33 miles of fiber and makes Coastal Fiber ser­vice avail­able to an addi­tion­al 879 cus­tomers.

  • 3,900 homes and busi­ness­es have now gained access to Coastal Fiber ser­vice
  • 220 miles of fiber have been con­struct­ed in coastal Geor­gia

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