Clay Electric Co-operative is happy to welcome in a new year full of new opportunities. As we look toward 2024, there are plenty of opportunities and difficulties on the horizon. Your cooperative has worked hard the last several years to build up the resiliency of the core of the system with rebuilding projects. We are incredibly happy with the work that has been accomplished and the increased reliability we’ve already seen demonstrated through the last few storm seasons. As we look into 2024, we are thankful for that resiliency and are turning our attention to bolstering other protections for the cooperative and our membership. 

Cybersecurity is a point of concern for businesses across every sector of the world. As businesses become more and more reliant on technology, the exposure they face to bad actors increases. Your cooperative is no different, and that is why a major focus of 2024 is on increasing our cybersecurity presence. Your cooperative is partnering with industry leaders to implement a system of protections and redundancies that will protect the vital personal and financial data with which we are entrusted. Clay Electric has maintained industry standard protections over the years, and those protections have served us well in dealing with unsuccessful cyberattacks, but our new partnerships offer better, proactive protection of our data. We are very excited to implement it all this year.

We hope if you have projects you are planning for this year, you will contact us about them. It may be winter now, but the weather will turn, and our members will start working around the home and farm. If you expect to take on a major project, please call us so we can be prepared. A solar installation, a machine shop that will need three-phase power or an upsized transformer, or simply new home construction are projects that we hope our members will inform us of as early as possible. There are still some supply chain constraints that we face, and we do not want to see our members unduly burdened by these issues. If you know you will be starting a project this year, give us a call so we can help.

Lastly, be sure to keep an eye out for your member number in the center section of this magazine. There are three member numbers hidden within the pages of Clay Electric News. If you spot your number and give us a call, you’ll win a $5 discount on your next bill!