Electric Cooperatives Deliver Clean, Affordable Energy To Virginians
Powered By Facts has always supported Virginia’s electric cooperatives in delivering reliable, clean energy to customers. In 2019, Powered By Facts backed legislation that raised net-metering caps for cooperative customers and permitted customers to install enough renewable energy to meet up to 125% of the previous year’s demand. During the current legislative session, Powered By Facts is supporting a bill that would further increase the cap on net-metering for cooperative customers and would allow cooperative customers to finance a renewable generator purchase via a power purchase agreement.
Electric cooperatives were formed out of the need to bring power to rural America — parts of the country that for-profit utilities were unwilling to serve because it was not profitable. The City of Staunton, Virginia received electricity in 1886. It was nearly 50 years later that the first electric cooperative was chartered in Virginia, Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative, in 1936 and power was brought to the surrounding areas.
Electric cooperatives are consumer-owned, not-for-profit energy providers. They are 100% wholly owned by their ratepayers and governed by a board that is elected annually from the membership of the cooperatives. Electric cooperative customers are referred to as member-owners. This hyper-local, not-for-profit business model makes cooperatives highly responsive to the needs of their member-owners and the communities they serve. The mission of electric cooperates remains much as it was at the time of their founding — to provide reliable, affordable, and environmentally conscious electricity to the member-owners of the cooperatives. But the role in the communities electric cooperates serve goes far beyond utility service.
Virginia is home to 13 distribution cooperatives that are owned by more than 1.5 million Virginians in rural and exurban areas of the Commonwealth. In many of these areas, the cooperative serves as a large employer and key economic development driver. In this role, cooperatives are major stakeholders in many areas of public policy—energy, workforce development, rural economic development, natural resources, and broadband.
Five of Virginia’s electric cooperatives are providing last-mile broadband service to unserved areas of the Commonwealth through for-profit subsidiaries of the co-op. Several others are working as middle mile broadband providers in partnership with other internet service providers (ISPs). Like our electric origin story, electric cooperatives are providing the highest quality broadband service in areas of the Commonwealth that have been deemed unprofitable to serve by many incumbent, for-profit telecommunications providers.
Cooperatives have been leaders among Virginia’s utilities in the transition toward a clean energy economy. Among their many achievements in innovation, cooperatives have been:
First in Virginia with Community Solar
First in Virginia with an Application under the 2017 Community Solar Act
Most Approved Applications under the 2017 Community Solar Act
First in Virginia with Legalized Third-Party Purchase Power Agreements for Solar
First in Virginia with Expanded Net-Metering Caps – and now some Co-ops are poised to exceed Investor-Owned Utility Caps
First in Virginia with Not-For-Profit Broadband
First in the Nation to form a Rural Broadband Association for Cooperatives and their Partners.
Second Generation and Transmission Cooperative in the Country with a Net-Zero Carbon Standard
Cooperatives pride themselves on adherence to their founding Cooperative Principles. The seventh of these principles is “Concern for Community.” It is with that principle in mind that cooperatives have sought to deepen their relationships with leaders and advocates in the environmental and renewable energy community. Cooperatives were proud members of the Rubin Group that worked to find consensus on renewable energy policy. By working with partners across a diverse range of interests and industries, cooperatives have been able to innovate quickly and lead the way into the clean energy economy.