Electric Cooperatives

 

Locally owned and operated, Kentucky’s 26 electric cooperatives create jobs, fuel growth, and power the lives and economies of communities across Kentucky and America.

A co-op doesn’t just serve a community, it’s part of the community.

The people who work at your local co-op also call your community home. When you call for customer service, it’s likely someone who lives in your community will respond to your request. Because your local co-op personally knows the people their services affect and sees them every day, they take it seriously.

Your local co-op is led by consumers like you who understand and listen to the community. Consumer-members of each local co-op elect their own board of directors. Across Kentucky and across the country, local cooperatives work together to develop new technologies and infrastructure, learn from each other, and keep the grid secure.

All 26 electric cooperatives in Kentucky are members of both the Kentucky Electric Cooperatives  and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA):

    • 24 distribution cooperatives deliver electricity directly to member-consumers.
    • Two “generation and transmission” cooperatives (G&Ts) supply power to the distribution co-ops.
    • Collectively, the electric cooperatives of Kentucky power the lives of 1.5 million people in 117 of Kentucky’s 120 counties.
    • Click here for a map and detailed listing of Kentucky’s electric cooperatives
Cooperatives around the world operate according to the same set of core principles and values, adopted by the International Co-operative Alliance. Cooperatives trace the roots of these principles to the first modern cooperative founded in Rochdale, England in 1844. These principles are a key reason that America’s electric cooperatives operate differently from other electric utilities, putting the needs of their members first.