CEO Letter CEO Letter Archives

G. Thomas Upshaw | President & CEO

Over their 75 year history, electric co-ops have made a name for themselves as trailblazers and innovators. For starters, co-ops efficiently and affordably ran power lines to parts of rural America that some utilities didn't see as profitable. Hilton Head Island is an example. Many experts consider rural electrification as the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century.

Today, co-ops are finding innovative ways to use renewable energy generation. With our chief power supplier, the state-owned utility Santee Cooper, Palmetto Electric and other co-ops across South Carolina offer members a chance to buy Green Power, which is homegrown renewable energy.

	Hilton Head Hospital COO Dean Turner, left, with Palmetto Electric's Tom Trout and our Green Power "mascot."

In addition to about 535 Green Power supporters, 16 commercial members of Palmetto Electric are Green Power Partners. Hilton Head Hospital recently showed its commitment by extending its partnership. As hospital COO Dean Turner notes, "We all have to look to the future. We are a big energy user. Supporting this initiative gives us a way to help promote the development of renewable energy resources."

Thanks in part to our members who buy Green Power, Santee Cooper recently dedicated its fifth landfill generating station in Georgetown County. At these facilities, electricity is generated using naturally occurring methane, which would be a potent greenhouse gas, as a fuel. A sixth site should be online this fall in Berkeley County.

There are local benefits as well. Earlier this year, Palmetto Electric Cooperative, the Technical College of the Lowcountry and Santee Cooper dedicated a 20-kilowatt (kw) solar array at TCL's New River Campus. Santee Cooper has also partnered with co-ops statewide to bring 2-kw arrays and middle school science lessons to Green Power Solar Schools across South Carolina. The first was Hilton Head Middle School.

Nationwide, more than 80 percent of our nation's 900-plus electric co-ops provide electricity produced by wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, landfill gas and other "green" sources. Palmetto Electric Cooperative and other co-ops aim to provide members with safe, reliable, affordable electricity. As it has been for 75 years, that's the co-op way.