More than magic
Lincoln Electric System CEO Emeka Anyanwu joined our utility in January 2024. Hear Emeka share his insights from his first year with LES.
2024 at a glance
With more than 200 square miles of communities to power, LES couldn't leave anything up for chance in 2024.
LES proudly served an average of 154,373 retail customers—136,126 residential and 18,247 commercial customers.
LES’ Customer Care department answered 123,680 calls, handled 42,220 requests and served 28,771 walk-in customers who visited the Walter A. Canney Service business lobby.
LES paid $13.4 million to Lincoln Public Schools, Lancaster County and the cities of Lincoln and Waverly in LES’ annual payment in lieu of tax, or PILOT. LES also paid $12.56 million to the City of Lincoln for its city dividend for utility ownership.
LES’ Meter Services team collected 37,075,010 meter reads (not including the interval reads taken from demand meters). These readings produced just under 2 million monthly bills—1,250,192 printed statements and 718,481 paperless statements.
The System Average Interruption Duration Index—the average outage time per customer—was just 19.3 minutes in 2024, excluding major events.
The average LES residential customer paid an average of only $2.99 per day to power their lives.
*$2.99/day for residential cost was what was published during 2024 based on budget amounts; the actual cost using actual results from 2024 was $2.82/day.
LES powered the community with a balanced array of resources. Our nameplate—the full capacity of our generation fleet—is 1/3 natural gas, 1/3 coal and 1/3 renewables.
LES provided mutual aid support for Hurricane Helene relief efforts in Georgia and in Omaha twice to help restore power to communities affected by severe weather. Forty-two crew members helped turn the lights back on.
LES ranked 4th for the most reliable rates over 10 years.
LES had 566 employees working together to bring you power.
LES' Sustainable Energy Program awarded $2.2 million to more than 6,300 energy-efficiency projects, reducing peak demand by 5.8 MW and 3,200 MWH.
LES received Nebraska's Safest Company Award from the National Safety Council for the eighth year.
Resiliency
The wave of a wand doesn’t mean much when an entire community depends on you to power their lives. Expecting the unexpected is a must for an electric utility, and 2024 saw LES take significant strides to ensure the safety of our electricity and the reliability our customers expect. And when the unexpected happened, we were prepared to bounce back stronger than ever.
Online customer account experience
At LES, we are driven by providing our customers with services and programs that best meet their evolving needs. After several years of extensive planning and cross-divisional collaboration, we launched a new online customer account experience, providing a customized user experience with more self-service functionality for customers than ever before.
Providing mutual aid
At the heart of public power is mutual aid—bearing the most extreme circumstances to help our public power community get back on its feet. LES answered the call for mutual aid three times in 2024, beginning in April when tornadoes swept through eastern Nebraska. After restoring power to our community, crews traveled to neighboring utilities to get their lights back on. Several months later, LES experienced the third-largest outage in our utility's history. And yet again, our crews didn't want to rest once their work was done at home; they traveled to help our neighboring utilities. When Hurricane Helene—the deadliest hurricane in the contiguous U.S. since 2005—devastated southeastern portions of the country, two LES crews traveled to Georgia to restore power. The next storm is bound to strike, and if LES can help, we will.
Cyber Tatanka
With an ever-changing cyber landscape, our cybersecurity work is never done. Therefore, LES co-hosted and participated in Cyber Tatanka, a two-week exercise during which cyber security professionals practice defending against cyberattacks in a controlled environment. In its third year, this event was its highest-attended yet, with six states and six countries participating. The Nebraska Public Power District, the Nebraska National Guard, Bryan Health and Union Bank and Trust joined LES in planning and organizing the 2024 event.
Safety award
LES prioritizes safety daily, earning us two safety awards in 2024. The National Safety Council-Nebraska named us one of Nebraska’s Safest Companies, joining 114 other Nebraska companies recognized for implementing safety initiatives to reduce injuries and save lives. LES also received the Spirit Award from the Nebraska Safety Council for demonstrating that we are taking steps to become future leaders in safety. With so much on the line for our employees and customers, LES is proud to be recognized for these efforts.
Sustainability
In pursuit of our goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions from generation by 2040, LES continued to make conscious and considerate choices throughout 2024 to create a cleaner energy future. Affordability and reliability coming together with sustainability? Pretty powerful, right?
Sustainable Energy Program
Through our Sustainable Energy Program, LES offered $2.5 million in incentives for customers making energy-efficiency improvements. By the end of 2024, LES customers reduced peak demand by 5.8 MW and 3,200 MWH through 6,300 energy-efficiency projects. Additionally, Lincoln residents could combine LES’ incentives for purchasing an air source heat pump with an incentive offered by the City of Lincoln, meaning customers could see bigger savings for energy efficiency than ever before.
LES Trail Cleanup
Building a greener future starts from the ground up. More than a dozen LES employees and their families volunteered their Saturday morning to clean up a bike trail in north Lincoln. Over 600 pounds of trash were removed, leaving our community a bit more beautiful than before.
Sustainability events
The LES team attended a variety of events throughout 2024 to connect with the people we so proudly serve, including Lincoln Earth Day and Arbor Day LNK. These events gave our community opportunities to celebrate sustainability and learn the importance of going green. LES brought EdITH—LES’ Educational Interactive Tiny House—for event visitors to walk through and learn about LES programs and energy-saving tips. LES volunteers also hosted a booth to inform attendees about planting the right trees in the right place to avoid interference with power lines.
Peak Rewards
More than 4,000 smart thermostats are enrolled in LES’ Peak Rewards program, which achieved a demand reduction of over 4 MW in 2024. Through Peak Rewards, LES makes two-hour adjustments to eligible thermostats during times of peak electrical demand to ease the burden on our local electric system. Four megawatts is the approximate peak power demand of eight big-box retail stores.
Community
While dazzling holiday lights and volunteerism might seem like magic, there’s much more to it than that. LES is owned and operated by our very own customers. Your community is our community! Under the principle of “local people serving local people,” educational experiences and public outreach were at the forefront of 2024.
Lincoln City Libraries partnership
LES partnered with Lincoln City Libraries in 2024 to promote STEM to young readers. We’re committed to igniting bright minds because our future depends on it. Eight books were hand-selected by LES experts to promote lessons, ideas and careers in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We donated these books to all Lincoln City Library locations for young readers to check out.
Zoo Lights Powered by LES
The sixth annual Zoo Lights Powered by LES wowed over 70,000 visitors from 40 states in 2024 and won the Outstanding Event Award by Nebraska Tourism. LES hosted Energy Nights at the event, where employee volunteers engaged with the public on energy-saving tips and LES programs.
Community Services Committee
Our employees love to give. Nearly two dozen LES employees served on the LES Community Services Committee. This group hosted eight events throughout the year, including bake sales, book drives and cookouts, for employees to help support local nonprofits. In 2024, more than $6,000 was raised, and nearly 3,000 items were donated to these organizations, in addition to $114,875 pledged to United Way.
Large Public Power Council
LES became the newest member of the Large Public Power Council in 2024. With the addition of LES, the LPPC represents 29 of the largest public power systems in the country and gives the utilities a prominent voice in Washington, D.C. As not-for-profit utilities owned and accountable to the communities they serve, LPPC members offer some of the cleanest, most reliable and most affordable energy in the U.S.
LES leadership
2024 LES Administrative Board
Andrew Hunzeker
David Spinar
Lucas Sabalka
Carl Eskridge
Kate Bolz
Karen Griffin
Chelsea Johnson
Eric Schafer
Alyssa Martin
LES Executive Team
Emeka Anyanwu
Shelley Sahling-Zart
Emily Koenig
David Malcom
Paul Crist
Jason Fortik
Lisa Hale
Trish Owen
Responding to the Howler
On July 31, 2024, LES faced the third-largest storm event in our 58-year history. Over 33,000 customers lost power that evening when 83-mile-per-hour straight winds blew through our service territory. Rain, thunder and lightning added to the situation’s severity.
Celebrating 15 years of SEP
On Feb. 2, 2009, LES launched a new program to promote energy efficiency with customers. Our Sustainable Energy Program (SEP) initially offered seven financial incentives to encourage residential, commercial and industrial customers to install energy-efficient measures to save money on their energy bills. In just four months, customers claimed all $1.1 million offered by LES.
So what’s next for LES?
While 2024 marked many milestones in LES’ history, one milestone will pave the way for our utility for years to come. LES plays a pivotal role in our community, and we need a plan to proactively position our utility, customers and community for long-term success. To achieve this, LES kickstarted a multi-quarter strategic planning process at the end of 2024.