What Is an Electric Cooperative?

Electric cooperatives are private, not-for-profit businesses governed by their consumers (known in Iowa as member-consumers). Two federal requirements for all co-ops, including electric co-ops, are democratic governance and operation at cost. Specifically, every member-consumer can vote to choose local boards that oversee the co-op, and the co-op must, with few exceptions, return to consumer-members revenue above what is needed for operation. Under this structure, electric co-ops provide economic benefits to their local communities rather than distant stockholders.

The majority of co-ops distribute electricity to consumers through low-voltage residential lines that cover more than 75 percent of the nation’s land mass. Many of these distribution co-ops, as they’re called, have joined to create co-ops that provide them with generation and transmission services. Distribution co-ops also buy power from investor-owned utilities, public power systems, federal hydropower power marketing administrations and the Tennessee Valley Authority..

The Cooperative Principles

Cooperatives around the world operate according to a core set of principles. These principles, along with the cooperative purpose of improving quality of life for their members, make electric cooperatives different from other electric utilities. Youth Tour holds a unique niche by fulfilling both the principles of Concern for Community and Education, Training and Information.

One of my favorite things we do during Youth Tour is we spend some time in an interactive, high-energy session learning about some of the different cooperative and how today’s youth can be part of the cooperative movement. If you know someone going on Youth Tour this year, ask them what they learned during this session! They'll have a lot to share!!