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2024 Annual Report - President & Chairman's Report

Chris Reese, President & CEO

 

Jack Haggerty, Chairman of the Board

Since 1937, Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative’s mission still rings true - to provide our members with the highest

possible quality of service at the lowest possible cost. We still face recurring challenges of rising power supply costs and economic inflation, all the while keeping abreast of market and industry changes and, most recently, ever-changing government regulations that put power reliability in jeopardy.

In 2022, Sussex REC had to raise its rates in response to a large spike in our costs of power generation plus a rise in costs of material, equipment, and fleet expenses. Prices continued to rise and supply chain issues still plagued the industry, resulting in 2023’s increase in the System Connection Fee, the fixed monthly charge that covers the costs associated for your home to be connected to our grid, our “system.” This charge includes the equipment, materials, labor, and operating costs necessary to serve each of Sussex REC’s 12,000 meters in our service territory, regardless of the amount of energy you use. Since the System Connection Fee is the same for each residential member, it allows these costs to be shared equally across the membership.

These last few years have probably been best summed up by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s CEO Jim Matheson during his address before the U.S. Energy Association’s State of the Energy Industry Forum, where he said “We talk about all of the change in the energy industry, but I’ll tell you something that hasn’t changed for us—job one is keeping the lights on. I fear that people in the policy world are not recognizing the importance of reliability."

One way that SREC ensures reliability for your power is through our diverse power mix. Overall, SREC provides its members with a nearly 80% carbon-free, reliable power mix. This is achieved through nuclear power from the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station (which provides the majority of our electricity) and hydropower from the Raystown Hydroelectric Plant and Niagara Power Project, plus additional fossil fuels, renewables, nuclear, and hydropower from the open market.

In 2023, we continued to see an increased number of outages due to extreme weather events and their impact on trees. Our area’s ash trees in particular have grown old and weak, becoming more susceptible to damage. Many are dead or rotting inside in part due to invasive pests like the emerald ash borer and the spotted lanternfly.

In response, we’ve increased our investment in our vegetation management program by 30% to help reduce outages caused by trees and branches.  Trees and branches caused 45% of the outages affecting members in 2023. Of that number, ash trees caused 48% (22% of all 2023 outages).  

Thanks to new technology and increased efficiency, we are proud to say that the time it takes our crews to restore service has declined five (5) years in a row. In 2023, the average Sussex REC member had power 99.96% of the time. ^{[Based on average 2023 outage total of 3.7 hours per member in 8,760 hour year.]}

In 2023 we continued to devote greater focus on security, both physical and cybersecurity. National and economic security of the U.S. depends on critical infrastructure. Cybercriminals are targeting utilities of all sizes as a key component to that critical infrastructure and our diligence is the key to providing you with reliable power.

In 2023, we saw growth in members signing up to take advantage of our convenient online billing options. Paperless billing reduces waste and removes any worry that your payment won’t arrive on time. Paperless billing cuts costs of printing and mailing bills, thanks to over 3,400 members who enrolled in paperless billing. Over 3,100 members enrolled in automatic drafts, a way to “set it and forget it,” with no credit card fees or stress about paying on time. Close to 83,000 payments were made online in 2023. We offer online bill payment at www.srecbillpay.com, with several convenient options that members can take advantage of.

Our wholly owned subsidiary SREC Resources continues to provide electrical contracting services to the area. Among their other operations and large jobs in 2023, SREC Resources installed 15 Cummins whole-house generators, 16 GenerLink transfer switches, and 21 Electric Thermal Storage heating systems. You can find more information on SREC Resources at www.NoMoreOutages.com.

ETS heat is available exclusively to Sussex REC members and provides electric heating at an off-peak rate. As of the end of 2023, we have a total of 336 ETS systems throughout our service territory, adding 7,675.15 kW of demand capacity to our system. We encourage interested members to visit www.yes2ets.com to see if ETS would be right for them.

Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative continues to benefit from its 50-year contract with the U.S. Army to provide utility services within Picatinny Arsenal. Throughout 2023 many improvements, upgrades, and replacements were completed. Our contract with Picatinny contributes to our ability to maintain strong line crew coverage during storms and large jobs.

Our Annual Meeting Event will be coming up soon, once again split into an Online Meeting covering the business portion of the event and an in-person Member Appreciation Event held at the NJ State Fair. When the Online Meeting becomes available on Monday, July 1st, you will be able to register for our in-person event to reserve up to two free Fair tickets. On August 5th at the Fair, SREC’s employees and directors will be staffing our booth at the BBQ Pavilion where we will be providing $10 bill credits and giveaway items to registered members. This year we will hold our prize drawing on Tuesday, after the event, and will contact the winners. We hope that you’ll join us at the Fair!

   

Other 2023 Updates

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