2025 System Reliability Actions and Investments

All figures are year-end projections.

Animal Guards

8,100+
Animal Guards
Installed/Upgraded

Animal guards enhance reliability by lowering the chance of wildlife-related faults. This significantly reduces outage risks, especially at locations prone to wildlife interference.

1,200+
Miles of Right-of-Way
Cleared

Clearing vegetation from rights-of-way prevents trees, limbs and branches from contacting power lines and causing outages.

ROW
Hazard Trees

~7,500
Hazard Trees Removed

Removing trees that pose a hazard improves reliability by preventing them from contacting poles, lines and other infrastructure.

40,000
Drone Inspections

Through drone inspections, REC teams can spot issues early instead of waiting for something to break. Drone inspections have identified 12,000 improvements in 2025.

Drone
Poles

5,550
Poles Replaced

Regularly replacing poles helps to address increased loading and evolving infrastructure. It also contributes significantly to system-wide reliability and resiliency.

27,400
Ground and
Underground Inspections

These inspections catch issues that drones cannot, including loose hardware or signs of equipment wear.

Underground

REC STORIES

REC Lineman Graduates to the Next Level

Tuesday | November 10, 2020
REC lineman, Eric Butler, was among 21 line workers from nine electric cooperatives in Virginia who graduated from apprentice to journeyman status fol...

The Power of Change at Work

Monday | November 9, 2020
Due to the generosity of over 27,000 REC member-owners, 11 local organizations were recently awarded grants totaling more than $74,200.

Gentlemen, Start Your (Electric) Vehicle!

Wednesday | November 4, 2020
REC's EV makes car show appearance