September 2014 - Pee Dee Electric

09 Pee Dee
Volume 15, Sept. 2014
Hi-Lite
SERVING 20,760 PEE DEE ELECTRIC MEMBERS
INSIDE
What’s Co-op Membership all about?
22 More than
ou set up your electric service account
with us at Pee Dee Electric and you
think to yourself, “That’s done. Now
I just have to pay my monthly bill.” But the
truth is we’re more than just a utility provider
that you pay each month for electricity. We
have more to offer—and we want you, our
members, to know about these benefits.
More than 900 electric cooperatives in
the U.S. serve 42 million members. Pee Dee
Electric is just one of them—we serve 20,760
meters, with lines stretching across over 3,200
miles. So what makes being a member of an
electric cooperative unique?
$700,000 in
capital credits
returned to members in September
23 Get to know your cooperative—
behind the scenes
24 Reliability and the need for
a balanced portfolio
Y
We’re all in this together. You are a member
of Pee Dee Electric—not a customer. And that
means you have a voice when it comes to the
way we do business. Each October, you have the
opportunity to vote for your board of directors.
These directors play a key role
in making important
decisions for
our co-op.
The first Thursday of
every October, we hold
our annual meeting of
the members of Pee
Dee Electric. This meeting is a wonderful time for
you to hear about the business of your company, meet
and enjoy your neighbors
and maybe even win a door
prize. Join us and your fellow members on Thursday, October 2, for
this year’s annual meeting at Richmond
Community College’s Cole Auditorium.
We’re local. It’s likely that you know an
employee of Pee Dee Electric. Our employees—your friends and neighbors—share the
same concerns for our community that you do.
Throughout the entire year, Pee Dee Electric
participates in chamber functions, school
safety demonstrations, Youth Tour promotions
and scholarship programs. To learn more about
our mission to strengthen our community, visit
our website at www.pdemc.com.
We’re not-for-profit. Pee Dee Electric
doesn’t offer profits to investors—we return
money over and above operating costs to you,
our members, based on electricity consumption. Annually, electric co-ops nationwide
return millions of dollars to members through
the capital credit process. This year, Pee Dee
Electric is returning over $730,000 to members
in the form of capital credits.
We’re here for you. At Pee Dee Electric
our mission is to provide you with reliable,
dependable service while focusing on value,
quality customer service and enhancing life in
the communities we serve. We care about our
members’ quality of life, which is why our
employees are continuously finding innovative ways to improve our service. We
have recently added new technology to
our outage management system, which
allows us to locate outages quicker and
be more efficient in our communications to you, our members. We have a
newly designed web page and we’ve
launched a new Facebook page that
helps us provide member information,
timely outage updates and vital information about storms. We encourage you
to use your Co-op Connections card at
participating businesses, another way we
help you save money.
These are just a few facts about electric
cooperatives that make us unique. We’re
working for you!
Pee Dee Hi-Lite Carolina Country SEPTEMBER 2014 21
CEO’S COMMENTS
Donnie Spivey, CEO and Executive Vice President
More than $700,000 in capital credits
returned to members in September
T
his year, the Pee Dee
Electric board of
directors is proud to
announce a general retirement of capital credits of
$730,000! In mid-September, members who received
electric service from Pee
Dee Electric during 1987
will receive a refund of their
capital credits allocated to
them for that year. The
amount of each check will
be based on how much
individual members paid
the cooperative for electric
service during the year 1987.
Since its inception, Pee
Dee Electric has returned
more than $10.5 million to
its members in capital credit
retirements. Putting money
back in members’ pockets through capital credit
refunds is just one unique
difference that sets Pee Dee
Electric apart from investorowned utilities.
Operating as an electric cooperative, Pee Dee
Electric is not like other
utilities—you, as a consumer and a member, own
a portion of the business.
One benefit of that membership involves the allocation of excess revenues,
called margins, in the form
of capital credits.
Since its inception,
Pee Dee Electric has
returned more than
$10.5 million to its
members in capital
credit retirements.
Electric cooperatives operate
at cost—collecting enough
revenue to provide reliable
electric service and quality customer service to our
members, but with no need
to raise rates to generate profits for distant shareholders.
When Pee Dee Electric has
money left over at the end of
EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT: Jesse C. Simmons
the year, it is allocated back
to you and other members
as capital credits. When the
co-op’s financial position
permits, the co-op retires, or
pays, the capital credits back
to members.
Capital credits are allocated on a continuous cycle:
the cooperative collects for
current needs to deliver reliable electricity while returning funds collected in previous years. This helps offset
the need to borrow funds,
which in turn, helps keep
your electricity rates lower.
Allocating and retiring
excess revenue to our members helps distinguish cooperatives. We are proud to
support our communities by
putting money back into the
local economy—and into the
pockets of our members that
we serve. This is one of the
things that make the electric
cooperative business model
special—focusing on putting
our members first!
Job Title: Lead Right-of-Way Coordinator
Years of Service: 21
Hobbies, interests: Enjoys hunting, fishing, and spending time with his family;
especially taking his baby boy for a boat ride.
22 SEPTEMBER 2014 Carolina Country Pee Dee Hi-Lite
Get to know your cooperative—
behind the scenes
C
hances are when you think of Pee
IT
ACCOUNTING &
Dee Electric you think of our linemen, or maybe the customer service
representative(s) you interact with when you
either call or come by one of our offices. But
did you know that there are a host of employees you don’t see that are a part of the Pee
Dee Electric family? These employees
work behind the scenes and are committed to the cooperative’s goal of providing
EXECUTIVE STAFF
legendary customer service and working
for you—our members.
Our accounting and IT departments
focus on ensuring that our systems are
finely tuned and working properly so we
can continue providing the reliability and
service you’ve become accustomed to.
The executive staff drives the vision
and strategic plan of the cooperative,
ICE
CUSTOMER SERV
working to meet the goals set forth
for Pee Dee Electric and ensuring
that your cooperative is continuously
improving and adapting as our members’ needs change.
Our remaining customer service
department focuses on the many programs Pee Dee Electric has that helps us
invest in and support the communities we
Edwards, Todd
Left to right: Anne
serve. In addition, these employees are
hley Ratliff-Haynes
responsible for the Pee Dee Hi-lite newslet- Moore and As
ter, social media, and the website content.
ddy
Left to right: Bu
Cato,
ie
Carriker, Stac
la
ge
An
Dale Ford,
y
Ra
d
an
Newton
Gaddy
Left to right: Kim
Faulkner, Phillip
Mabry, Cathy Page
and Mark Rhyne
HUMAN R
ESOURCES
Betty Knig
ht
Statement of Nondiscrimination
Pee Dee Electric Membership Corporation is the recipient of federal financial assistance from the Rural Utilities Service, an agency of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and is subject to the provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, Section 504 of
the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended, and the rules and regulations of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture which provide that no person in the United States on the basis of race, color, national origin, age or disability
shall be excluded from participation in, admission or access to, denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination
under any of this organization’s programs or activities.
The person responsible for coordinating this organization’s nondiscrimination compliance efforts is Donald H. Spivey, CEO/Executive
Vice President. Any individual, or specific class of individuals, who feels that this organization has subjected them to discrimination may
obtain further information about the statutes and regulations listed above from and/or file a written complaint with this organization; or the
Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. 20250; or the Administrator, Rural Utilities Service, Washington, D.C. 20250.
Complaints must be filed within 180 days after the alleged discrimination. Confidentiality will be maintained to the extent possible.
Pee Dee Hi-Lite Carolina Country SEPTEMBER 2014 23
Reliability and the need
for a balanced portfolio
E
lectric cooperatives
across North Carolina
are encouraging
members to visit www.
TellEPAnc.com and add
their voices to the thousands
who are concerned about
new regulations for power
plants proposed by the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).
As written, the proposal would require North
Carolinians to reduce carbon
emissions by 39 percent. To
meet this ambitious target,
coal plants may be shut down,
your power bill will go up, and
the electricity you depend on
may be less reliable.
To be “always on”
requires the right mix of
renewable and traditional
generation. Our current
power supply portfolio to
serve you is made up of
electricity generated from
a diverse mix of sources,
including nuclear, natural
gas, renewables, hydro, market purchases and coal. By
finding the right balance of
energy sources, our power
supply professionals can
ensure that enough electricity
is available to meet demand
at all times—even during the
hottest summer days or this
winter’s polar vortex. If coal
plants shut down due to the
Pee Dee
EPA’s proposal, our ability to meet demand at all
times will be threatened.
Renewable energy is
an important piece of the
power generation puzzle,
and in recent years
we have participated
in renewable energy
projects, such as solar,
through the purchase
of renewable energy
certificates and interconnection of member facilities. Further we provide
energy efficiency programs and conservation
information so you can
use electricity wisely and
save money. However, the
truth remains that renewable
energy is limited in its use
because it does not produce
a consistent or predictable
flow of energy at all times.
Consider solar for example:
When a cloud passes overhead or in the dark of night,
photovoltaic solar panels
don’t produce electricity.
To ensure an uninterrupted flow of electricity
utilities own an infrastructure, or “grid” of generating plants, substations,
interconnected transmission
and distribution lines and
equipment that supplies
the exact amount of power
consumers require 24 hours
We Want Your
Bright Ideas!
Deadline is
September 30
a day, seven days a week,
rain or shine, day and night.
For now, fossil fuels such as
with coal are an important
part of our generation mix.
The regulations proposed by the EPA jeopardize our ability to provide
the affordable, reliable
energy our members count
on. Help us make sure the
EPA understands that in
North Carolina, we need a
balanced approach to power
generation. Contact your
elected officials by visiting
www.TellEPAnc.com today.
For ideas to help save energy
and money now, visit
www.TogetherWeSave.com
or download the free app.
Hi-Lite
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Richard Johnson, President
Don Thompson, Vice President
Gene Russell, Secretary-Treasurer
Winnie Bennett, Craig Davis,
Marcia Lambeth, Benny Lybrand,
Ben McCallum, Richard Melton,
Craig Ratliff
www.pdemc.com
To report an outage, call 1-800-693-0190
Published by Pee Dee Electric
575 U.S. Hwy. 52 South,
Wadesboro, N.C. 28170
24 SEPTEMBER 2014 Carolina Country Pee Dee Hi-Lite
CEO/EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
Donald H. Spivey
EDITOR
Anne Edwards
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Ashley Haynes
Pee Dee Electric
will fund at least
$13,000
in grants
to teachers at
certified
K–12
public
schools,
through
the
Bright
Ideas
program.
If you’ve found
a great concept to
integrate into your
classroom, write a
grant for it.
There is no limit
to how many times
you can apply, but
to be eligible, you
must have your
grant applications
postmarked by
September 30.
For more information, call 704-6947608, email
[email protected] or
visit www.ncbrightideas.com

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