ABOUT CO-OPS

 

Empowering Communities

For over 85 years, electric cooperatives have contributed greatly to the local communities we serve by providing stable careers, paying taxes, returning surplus capital to members, and investing in student programs.

Today, electric cooperatives employ almost 2,000 Iowans, offering dependable careers with competitive wages and benefits in an exciting industry. Many co-op employees choose to raise families in small-town environments and are actively involved in their communities.

Collectively, Iowa’s electric cooperatives pay almost $29 million in state and local taxes each year, which help fund local emergency services, road maintenance, healthcare and schools throughout rural areas.

And because electric cooperatives are member owned, our members build equity in the local co-op each year based on their electric use. Surplus capital is returned back to members over time when local boards determine it is financially feasible. To date, Iowans have received more than $300 million in retired capital credits from their electric cooperatives.  

We also invest in the next generation of Iowans through several educational and leadership development programs. For example, Iowa’s electric cooperatives have been sending high school students to Washington, D.C., each summer for over 65 years. On the Electric Youth Tour trip, students learn more about their role as American citizens and the cooperative business model. Electric cooperatives also support local students through college scholarships and internships.

 

Economic Engines of Progress

Electric cooperatives do more than just provide power. We also invest heavily in economic development efforts throughout rural Iowa.

For the five years ending in 2022, Iowa electric co-ops had an impressive impact of $4.7 billion in economic development projects. These investments supported more than 7,300 jobs (retained, attracted or expanded) during that same time period.

Electric cooperatives have a long legacy of partnering with USDA Rural Development and USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS). Iowa’s electric cooperatives serve as intermediaries for USDA revolving loan funds, among other programs and projects.

Many of Iowa’s electric co-ops are members of Iowa Area Development Group, which has helped create and retain more than 57,500 jobs since it was founded in 1985. IADG has assisted more than 2,450 companies in investing almost $14 billion in new locations and expansion through rural economic development projects since its inception.

Additionally, several Iowa electric co-ops have been instrumental in developing industrial speculative buildings to accommodate local business expansion and attract new businesses and jobs to their communities.

 

Enduring Affordability

While the cost of most goods and services has increased significantly over the past 85 years, electricity remains very affordable. In fact, the average cost per kilowatt-hour has only doubled since the 1930s.

In Iowa, the average household served by electric cooperatives spends about $5.25 a day on electricity. You can’t even buy a sandwich or specialty coffee drink at that price! The average American household is steadily spending less on electricity as a percentage of its income, even as we become increasingly reliant on digital conveniences in our day-to-day lives.

We help our co-op member-owners use energy wisely through energy efficiency programs, audits, rebates and incentives so they can spend their hard-earned money on other things. Iowa’s electric cooperatives work hard to control local costs in order to keep rates and fees as low as possible. Because we are member owned, our rates are cost-based; we’re not driven by profits like investor-owned utilities.

We invest in technology and innovation to improve service, reliability and efficiency. For example, digital meters allow members to track their electric consumption and make changes that can save money on their electric bills.

 

Ensuring Reliability

During the past 10 years, Iowa’s electric cooperatives have kept the power running 99.96% of the time, despite blizzards, ice storms, tornadoes, derechos or other extreme weather events. The average Iowa household served by electric co-ops experienced one outage per year, lasting 138 minutes during that same timeframe.

Reliable electricity is our daily priority. Sustaining a resilient electric distribution system requires extensive planning with ongoing maintenance, inspections and system upgrades. Iowa’s electric co-ops proactively test poles for possible deterioration and adhere to aggressive vegetation management plans to reduce outages and minimize damage to infrastructure.

And if a co-op does experience extensive outages, they work with neighboring co-ops for mutual aid to get the power flowing to members as quickly and safely as possible.

A recent threat to reliability comes from misguided energy policy, which prioritizes intermittent sources of power like solar and wind over dispatchable sources like coal and natural gas. Iowa’s electric cooperatives believe in a diverse power generation strategy to ensure reliability. Our “all-of-the-above” generation portfolios include dispatchable sources of power because we can control the output and ramp up generation when needed to match sudden increases in electric demand.

We continue to educate our legislators and regulators about reliability concerns in energy policy discussions.

 

Doing More with Less

Iowa’s electric cooperatives serve primarily rural areas with sparse populations, meaning we literally cover more ground than other types of utilities. Iowa municipalities average 58 meters per mile of line which generates $131,000 of revenue per mile of line. Compare that to electric co-ops in Iowa which average only 4 meters per mile and generate about $10,800 per mile of line. Iowa’s investor-owned utilities serve 28 meters per mile which generates $85,000 per mile of line.

These realities mean that Iowa’s electric cooperatives must maintain more infrastructure with significantly less revenue per mile compared to other electric utilities. To accomplish this task, co-ops structure rates and fees to recover costs and partner with other cooperatives and organizations to create efficiencies of scale for supplies, insurance, financing, technology solutions and more.

For example, most of Iowa’s electric cooperatives are part of the Touchstone Energy national brand alliance, which means they have access to a vast network of resources and services that they couldn’t create on their own.

 

Out of the Darkness

Iowa’s electric cooperatives have a proud legacy that goes back generations. Most electric co-ops were formed in the 1930s and 1940s and have been owned by the members they serve since the beginning, making us truly democratic organizations that are locally owned and governed.

Almost 100 years ago, there was an “electric divide” in America. 9 out of 10 urban citizens enjoyed the modern conveniences of electricity while 9 out of 10 rural citizens were left in the dark. And life on the farm was difficult without electricity; there was no indoor plumbing or reliable refrigeration. Cooking, lighting and heating homes without electricity was dangerous and inefficient. Household chores and farm work were laborious and time consuming.

The investor-owned utilities at that time didn’t see the return on investment to build out miles of power lines and infrastructure to only reach a few farms. But a bright light was coming.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt believed that if private enterprise could not supply electricity to the people, then it was the duty of the government to do so. He created the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) in 1935 as part of the New Deal and the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 provided official status to the REA as a lending agency to serve rural areas. With federal financing ready to go, REA representatives traveled across the country to help rural citizens band together to form not-for-profit electric cooperatives in order to bring affordable, reliable electricity to their homesteads.

By 1950, over 80% of farms had access to electricity and 99% were electrified by 1960. Truth be told, nothing has improved the life of rural Americans like electrification.

 

About Touchstone Energy

IAEC is proud to be part of the Touchstone Energy cooperative network, the largest utility network in the nation. The Touchstone Energy brand represents a nationwide alliance of 750 local, consumer-owned electric cooperatives in 46 states. Championing the cause for lowest-cost, democratically governed energy, Touchstone Energy provides a unified face for hundreds of electric cooperatives across the country that power the lives of 32 million member-owners. Touchstone co-ops gain access to a wealth of advertising stock, education and training tools, member benefit programs, and web development resources. By working jointly, the network of small cooperatives that make up Touchstone Energy generate services that would normally require the resources of a national corporation. Learn more at www.touchstoneenergy.com.