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

A powerful line of thunderstorms moved through REC's entire service territory late this afternoon and into the evening, bringing intense rain and stro...
More than 16,500 Rappahannock Electric Cooperative (REC) member-owners participated in the 2026 director elections by designating their proxy or joini...

A Journey That Shapes Future Leaders

Saturday | August 1, 2026
Four area high school students represented REC during the Electric Cooperative Youth Tour in Washington, D.C. The annual weeklong event is hosted by t...