Utility cooperative

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A utility cooperative is a type of cooperative that is tasked with the delivery of a public utility such as electricity, water or telecommunications to its members. Profits are either reinvested for infrastructure or distributed to members in the form of "patronage" or "capital credits", which are dividends paid on a member's investment in the cooperative.[1]

Each customer is a member and owner of the business with an equal say as every other member of the cooperative, unlike investor-owned utilities where the amount of say is governed by the number of shares held. Like coops operating in other sectors, many utility cooperatives conduct their affairs according to a set of ideals based on the Rochdale Principles. Some utility cooperatives respect the seventh principle, Concern for community, through Operation Roundup schemes, whereby members can voluntarily have their bill rounded to the next currency unit (e.g. $55.37 becomes $56), with the difference (e.g. 63¢) distributed to a fund for local charities.[2]

Many such cooperatives exist in the rural United States, and were created by the New Deal [3] to bring electric power and telephone service to rural areas, when the nearest investor-owned utility would not provide service, believing there would be insufficient revenue to justify the capital expenditures required. Many electric cooperatives have banded together to form their own wholesale power cooperatives, often called G&Ts for generation and transmission, to supply their member-owners with electricity.

Many utility cooperatives strive to bring the best service at the lowest possible cost, but often the high cost of maintaining the infrastructure needed to cover large, rural areas without the support of large cities as a rich customer base causes prices to be high. However, a few such co-ops have managed to tap into urban markets (due to growth into previously rural territory served by the co-ops) and have proven to be very cost-effective. More recently established energy co-ops began with national coverage: Co-operative Energy in the UK and Enercoop in France being examples of consumer cooperatives. Other co-ops have formed to concentrate on the generation of renewable energy, especially wind energy co-operatives.

Electric Cooperatives

North America

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See also: List of US Electric Cooperatives and List of Canadian Energy Cooperatives

There are two types of electric cooperatives, distribution cooperatives and generation and transmission (G&T) cooperatives. Distribution electric cooperatives serve end-users, such as residences and businesses, who make up their membership. Generation and transmission cooperatives typically sell wholesale power to distribution cooperatives and are cooperative federations owned by their member co-ops.

Naming

Most electric cooperatives in the United States carry the name "electric cooperative" in their name, which makes it easy to identify their organization. Most cooperatives carry a name that identifies or explains some aspect of their service area. For example, Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative in Texas is named after the Bluebonnet which grows naturally in its service area and A&N Electric Cooperative in Virginia, is named so because it serves Accomac County and Northampton County. For years after the Rural Electrification Administration was established, many rural residents in the US called cooperatives, regardless of their name, "REA" and would in turn say they were served by REA instead of the cooperative name if asked who their electric provider was. Today, some cooperatives, though, either by choice or by the guidance of state charter laws, carry a variation of the cooperative name. These include:

  • Electric Cooperative Association
  • Rural Electric Association
  • Rural Electric Cooperative
  • Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation (RECC)- Mainly used in Kentucky [1]
  • Electric Membership Cooperative (EMC)- Used in many states, such as Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, etc.
  • Rural Electric Membership Corporation (REMC)
  • Electric Power Association (EPA)- Mainly used in Mississippi
  • Power Cooperative
  • Energy Cooperative

Several states have another variation of the utility cooperative and which are known as Public Power Districts (PPDs) in Nebraska and Public Utility Districts (PUDs) in Oregon and Washington. In both cases, the laws that created these 'quasi-cooperative' utilities were created with the specific intent of taking over territory being served by privately owned power companies in those states. Nebraska's conversion from a mixture of power companies serving the state to a public power empire spanned the 1940s (the last privately owned utility line into the state being cut on December 29, 1949), with the creation of the PUDs in the Pacific Northwest starting about the same time and continuing with varying degrees of success over the following two decades. The key difference between a PPD/PUD and a cooperative is that PPDs/PUDs are publicly controlled by residents of a state or local area and run more like a municipal power system than a cooperative system. A cooperative is owned and operated by the customers they serve within their designated service area. Cooperative owners have voting rights to elect the cooperative's board members each year and generally have more say in the operations than other utility forms.

Peer associations

Small cooperatives often band together to achieve economies of scale, share expertise and stand together on regulatory issues. There are several statewide (and in Canada, province-wide) associations of cooperatives, including Kentucky [2] and Nova Scotia [3] [4][5].

Europe

In 2013, REScoop, a European federation of energy co-operatives, both producers' and consumers', was launched. It has 11 members in 7 countries.

In the UK, Co-operative Energy was established in 2010 by Midcounties Co-operative and supplies electricity and gas across the country.

Telephone cooperatives

Telephone Cooperatives have today expanded beyond their historical role of providing fixed line telephone services, by also offering broadband and often cable TV services (via DSL, coaxial cable or optical fibre), and mobile/wireless services.

North America

Canada

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See also: List of Canadian Telephone Cooperatives

There are approximately a dozen telephone cooperatives in Canada, with the majority operating in Ontario, the most populous province. The largest, however, are large regional providers: Access Communications Co-operative in Saskatchewan and Westman Communications Group in Manitoba.

United States

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See also: List of US Telephone Cooperatives

There are approximately 260 telephone cooperatives in the US, together employing approximately 23,000 and annual revenues of $3.9B.[4] Many were formed during the New Deal in the 1930s, but some date to the turn of the 20th century. Most operate one - or a small number of - exchanges, typically as an Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC), but some have become regional players through merger and now operate as Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLEC).

Europe

Cooperatives here have national coverage.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Explanation of Patronage or Capital Credits
  2. ↑ Operation Roundup
  3. ↑ Rural Electrification
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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