Your local electric cooperative–never out of style

BY PAUL WOOD

It is always amusing to hear someone say, "Those electric co-ops may have been a good idea a long time ago, but nobody would create a new business that old-fashioned way now."

But not so fast. Today, cooperatives are the fastest-growing segment of the electric utility industry, with a growth rate that is nearly three times that of investor-owned utilities. And it’s not just the established electric cooperatives that are growing. New cooperatives are popping up in places one might least expect to find them.

One of the more interesting new cooperatives, based in the heart of New York City, is First Rochdale Cooperative. Primarily consisting of housing cooperatives, it buys power on the wholesale market and offers its members energy-efficiency services.

Another cooperative is the California Oil Producers Electric Cooperative (COPE), organized in 1999. The co-op’s leaders say they chose the cooperative approach because it "allows the members to combine their purchasing power in the marketplace." In the highly volatile energy market that followed deregulation in California, the cooperative form of governance turned out to be a particularly good idea.

A group of citizens on Hawaii’s Kauai Island have created an electric cooperative to acquire the investor-owned utility that serves the island. The community’s desire for local control and local ownership of its own utility is evidenced by the overwhelming grassroots support for the co-op. At press time, the acquisition was pending before the Hawaii Public Utility Commission.

The simple truth is that the principles upon which electric co-ops were founded–providing near-cost electric service through a private, locally operated business, governed by its customer-owners through an elected board of directors—is as attractive today as when electric co-ops were founded in the 1930s.

Nationwide, electric co-ops are serving an additional one million people each year. The nearly 1,000 cooperatives comprising America’s largest electric-utility network serve 34 million customers in 47 states. Not bad for an "old-fashioned" idea.

Today’s EMCs are constantly seeking new and innovative technologies to offer state-of-the-art services to their customers. Altogether, more than $10 billion is invested annually in products and services that are needed to upgrade and operate co-op systems.

Our own growth over the past decade in Georgia is reflected in the chart on page 14.

Frankly, such growth does not surprise me. Nor am I surprised by the continued acceptance of the cooperative form of business for electric utilities. There is no better control than to be owned by those we serve. Quality service, pride of ownership, and community involvement have always distinguished cooperatives from our competitors. As long as we emphasize these traits, the cooperative form of enterprise will never go out of style.