Tideland’s annual meeting of members was held on Thursday, May 11, 2023, at Beaufort County Community College. Thanks to our year-round delivery of progress updates, you needn’t worry about being in the dark about co-op matters if you couldn’t attend the meeting in person. However, the meeting did provide an opportunity to discuss future Tideland projects as well as measures our statewide generation and transmission cooperative, North Carolina Electric Membership Corporation (NCEMC) in Raleigh, is undertaking to benefit more than 1 million co-op members statewide.

In the area of capital investments, Tideland’s year-over-year expenditures began to decelerate in 2022 following massive infrasture investments during years 2018-2021. Those sizeable investments are reflected in the chart above which depicts our year-end net electric plant value for each of the last five years.

We recently completed a rebuild of the Rose Bay circuit as well as a significant portion of the Dowry Creek circuit between Lake Phelps and the Pungo National Wildlife Refuge. Growth in Pamlico County will require a future double circuit from Grantsboro to Arapahoe. That project is currently in the engineering phase before moving on to right-of-way acquisition prior to the start of construction.

Tideland is also actively engaged in a US Department of Energy competitive grant application process in a bid to secure matching construction funds made available through the 2021 bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

To lead the way to a low-cost, low-carbon future, NCEMC is developing a virtual power plant using sophisticated technology to coordinate thousands of distributed energy resources across the co-op network, spanning 100,000 miles of distribution power lines. This coordination ensures the resources work together to deliver the most possible value to all cooperative members.

We are pleased that NCEMC has entrusted Tideland to take a lead role in that endeavor via their investment of two microgrid sites in Tideland territory and the Ecobee thermostat program.