Ohio's Electric Cooperatives

As the largest co-op in Ohio, South Central Power Company serves a broad population. From suburban city life to the beautiful greenery of Hocking Hills, South Central Power serves more than 120,000 residential, industrial, and commercial consumers across 24 counties.

Holmes-Wayne Electric Cooperative (HWEC) sits proudly among beautiful rolling hills and amid the largest Amish population in the United States. With a service area located halfway between Cleveland and Columbus, HWEC provides electricity to more than 13,900 consumer-members, mainly in Holmes and Wayne counties.

Paulding Putnam Electric Cooperative (PPEC) straddles the state line in northwest Ohio and northeast Indiana, serving 13,063 consumer-members between both states. Their membership profile straddles a line as well, with 60% residential members and the rest commercial and industrial.

Larry and Gloria Brunk have a pretty good sense of what’s happening at their local electric cooperative. They’ve been members of Midwest Electric, in the northwest part of the state, for more than 45 years and like to keep up with the goings-on at the co-op.

The 2016 elections demonstrated the influence of rural voters — and, therefore, let elected officials know in no uncertain terms to pay attention to the needs of rural America.

While the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association has a team of government affairs professionals lobbying Congress every day, local cooperative leaders make an annual trek to Washington, D.C., every April so those federal policymakers hear directly from folks from their district or home state.

Tucked against the base of Mad River Mountain in Bellefontaine is one of Ohio’s smallest co-ops, Logan County Electric Cooperative (LCEC). What the co-op might lack in size, however, it makes up for in service. General Manager Rick Petty and his staff prioritize connections with their more than 4,600 consumer-members in their mission to provide local, safe, reliable, affordable electricity.

Guernsey-Muskingum Electric Cooperative (GMEC) serves 17,091 consumer-members in east-central Ohio. The unglaciated terrain doesn’t lend itself to wide swaths of farmland, but the hills make for fine pasturelands for cattle raising, and poultry barns fit nicely in the valleys. Because it’s situated in the midst of the Utica Shale, the oil and gas industry is a strong economic driver for the region.

The pursuit of fortune often leads people far from home. Sometimes, however, Lady Luck shows up unannounced literally right in your own backyard.

In 1976, David and Jane Kunkler purchased 40 rural acres in Perry County at a sheriff’s sale, built a home, and moved in. “The land had been uninhabited since 1888,” David Kunkler says. “A family by the name of Elder last lived on it. The husband and wife raised 13 children here.”

Pioneer Electric Cooperative, based in Piqua, is a celebrity among cooperatives, if there can be such a thing. On Nov. 14, 1935, just six months after President Franklin Roosevelt’s executive order creating the Rural Electrification Administration, a crowd of more than 500 farmers, businessmen, and statesmen from around the country gathered in Piqua to watch workers set the first REA utility pole in the nation.

Two Ohio electric cooperative nominees have been named winners in a national contest by Touchstone Energy Cooperatives, the nationwide alliance of more than 730 consumer-owned electric cooperatives. Touchstone sponsors the #WhoPowersYou contest to honor co-op members for demonstrating their concern for their respective communities, which is one of Touchstone’s core values. The awards come with cash prizes to help the winners continue their valuable work.