Economic Development

South River Electric Membership Corporation is committed to working with local and state officials to encourage economic growth in North Carolina and especially in our communities.

Our comprehensive economic development program is a combination of networking, special commercial and industrial rates and special low-interest loans.

Our expansion and relocation team, together with our professional engineers and support staff, can custom design an energy management program for incoming organizations. We can also provide new industry with other important data to help them make the best choices for expansion and location.

In the past couple of years, South River EMC has been working overtime to improve the quality of life in our communities by working with several new and existing industries.

Since 1995, North Carolina’s electric cooperatives have helped bring more than 14,600 jobs and $903 million of economic investment to the state. Learn more in our special report “Electric Cooperatives and the North Carolina Economy.” [Download PDF]

We provide a wide array of support for businesses seeking to start, expand, or relocate to the Tar Heel State. These include:

• assistance with site and building identification (also visit www.sitesacrossamerica.com)
• energy audit services
• assistance with market research
• flexibility in rate design
• power quality services
• loan and grant assistance
• demographic analysis

Interconnection of Distributed Generation

South River EMC is happy to work with commercial and industrial members who have chosen to install a renewable energy generator, with the intent of selling excess power back to the Cooperative. The member must ensure that the installation complies with the National Electric Code (NEC) and all applicable local codes (latest editions) and that the system has been inspected and approved by the electric inspector that has legal jurisdiction. Feel free to call the Cooperative at (910)892-8071 for more information or send e-mail inquiries to sremc@sremc.com

Although there are many sources of renewable energy available, not all are ideal for our location, for example, wind energy is not recommended for central North Carolina, but solar energy is feasible.

South River EMC is currently interconnected with Hamilin Energy Solutions for a 107 kilowatt photovoltaic system (PV) at the facility of Hamlin Sheet Metal facility in Benson. Visit the Hamlin interactive site to see how much energy is being produced by the PV system right now!

Automated Meter Reading (AMR)

South River EMC is in the process of installing an automated meter reading, or AMR, program. However, progress will be slow and full installation of the program will take a couple of years.

Using wireless radio transmitters, AMR remotely reads member meters and then transfers the data into our billing system. AMR will reduce the need for meter readers to manually gather meter readings each month. We will begin to install new metering at several substations this month. These substations serve primarily the areas closest to the Dunn office so that our employees working on this project can respond quickly in the event there is an issue. Contractors will begin to replace the meters on businesses this month to correspond with the remote reading equipment in the substations.

Benefits of AMR

• Reduces operational costs such as meter reading and transportation costs.
• Reduces the need to access your property to read your meters.
• Improves call resolution – the AMR system will give employees the ability to provide members with more detailed information such as power consumption patterns, outage and blink count history and voltage information, reducing high
  bill inquiries.
• Allows for better outage management.
• Reduces employee injuries, especially in areas with fences and landscaping.

For more information call 800-338-5530 or (910)892-8071 or e-mail sremc@sremc.com

Frequently Asked Questions

Miscellaneous

South River EMC belongs to several Economic Development organizations and Committees of 100. We try to assist state and local economic development officials in any way possible.

Our economic development electric rate makes it possible for many large industrial accounts to have an attractive electric rate which gives them a break while trying to ramp up operations (1000 KW or higher).

For more information on South River EMC's economic development initiatives or our commercial and industrial programs, contact Director of Member and Public Affairs Catherine O' Dell at 910-892-8071 or e-mail to sremc@sremc.com