Each electric cooperative is unique, reflecting the communities it serves, the people it employs, and the history of decisions that have come before.
Electric cooperatives are not-for-profit organizations controlled by local people who are members of the cooperative, elected by the membership to represent the interests of their fellow members. Those interests generally align along the themes of safety, reliability, value, and service.
While each electric cooperative is unique, reflecting the communities it serves, the people it employs, and the history of decisions that have come before, each electric co-op also shares the attributes of democratic local control for the benefit of its members.
Over the years, Ohio’s electric cooperatives have aligned themselves in order to realize the mutual benefits that come from new cooperative organizations — organizations founded, owned, and controlled by the co-ops for the benefit of their members. Some cooperative service organizations are national, providing services such as at-cost financing, insurance, information technology, telecommunications, after-hours call centers, and employee benefits management.
In Ohio, Buckeye Power is the co-ops’ locally based generation and transmission service provider, and Ohio Rural Electric Cooperatives, Inc. (OREC), is their state-based trade association. Both are owned and controlled by Ohio’s electric cooperatives and are run for the benefit of the co-ops and their members.
Leaders from your electric cooperative provide oversight to Buckeye Power and OREC, ensuring decisions are made that support the themes of safety, reliability, value, and service.
The co-ops have invested in Buckeye Power to be able to jointly own and control power plants that provide a reliable supply of electricity, at cost, and that investment paid off again this year. While costs have increased over the past several months, the outstanding performance of our power plants has allowed Buckeye Power to produce more power than members required, sell the excess, and earn more revenue.
Co-op representatives who govern Buckeye Power have again determined that these additional revenues be returned in the form of lower power costs to members over the next several months. In total, nearly $40 million will be returned to cooperative members to offset some of the increases in power supply costs this year. That comes out to about $5 per month in savings for the average household.
That’s just one way your cooperative works for you — day in and day out, year in and year out. We appreciate your patronage and support, and we are here for you.
