OT. Rural Electric Coop

Just got back from the annual meeting of our Rural Electric. The debit (67%) to asset (33%) ratio seems rather low to me for a 68 year old company. Am I missing something or is this how coops run?

I believe ours is in a whole lot better shape but I can't recall any numbers.

Id hate to have my business that much in debt. I have low confidence in the Board and GM/CEO

Back 25 or so years ago, I got a check from the local coop for around $200 a year for a refund (the word escapes me). Then all of a sudden, it stopped. That was about the time that they started buying up the other coops around and getting bigger, not better. They finally started giving a little back, and last year, I got a whole $13 taken off a bill for a month. The company is nothing like it used to be as far as service goes. And the rates for low usage customers gets higher, while the high usage customers get price breaks. All the while they are preaching energy conservation in the newsletters! Now that is just backwards to my old backward thinking I guess. Something is wrong the way I see it.

Tony,
Our co-op was sold to an investor several years ago, but somehow was allowed to continue to operate like a co-op, which meant that customers had no choice in their providers or rates. Now, we have Power-to-Choose which seems to have added a middle-man into the process: we have the same provider as before who inserts his monthly pass-thru charges, plus the company we choose will send us the bill (including their charges). Lines are still poorly maintained, and when I contact the state PUC, I'm told that our area is so sparsely populated that there is no competition for electric service, so our rates run around 15 cents per KWH. We were better off with the co-op.
Butch

The Co-Op we have in our area in N.M. is nothing but a "Good old boys " Club. Mgr. thinks he's God and the board is just in it for the Bennie's they get, and every year the voting is "Fixed". AS I've BEEN told............Jim in N.M.

It's very very expensive to provide utilities to remote areas.

I have service from two REC's, one I worked for 32 years, It is in the heart of the Bakken, got a 400 dollar capital credit check, plus if you attended annual meeting you got $250 credit on your bill. The other East of the Bakken I got a $14.00 cc check. My bill is about $1400 a year at both. First one is .08 cents a kwh, and the second is at .14 cents a kwh.

All the rural coperatives are heavily subsidized. If they weren't, power to many rural areas would be double or triple what they are.

I get my electric from a Co-op. It's supposed to be a lot cheaper than the big companies (NYSEG and National Grid in my area) but I really don't think it is
They're allotted 10 megawatts of cheap power, which they buy from NYSEG. When they go over the 10 megawatt limit, the rate goes through the roof. They are over their peak much of the time, so I think it ends up being just as expensive as the big companies.
I have oil heat, no central AC and electric hot water - three people in the house, and my bill runs around $200/month
Of course, this is NY, where everything is more expensive...

I can't complain a bit about our local REC. A few years ago at least five county based REC'S merged into one. They didn't do it all at once but that's what they ended up with. In the past few years they have been re-spanning poles closer, replacing the wire and burying power into farm building sites for a price that is darned near impossible to pass up. When they updated the poles and lines past my farm and buried (bored) the power into my farm place I asked the company that was dong the boring if they could bore a line to a building on my farm, going under a feed floor. They did bore it and they charged me 1/2 of what they charged the REC for their work. It took them all of fifteen minutes to bore 200 feet and pull the conduit through. I gave them a check and they left, easy as that. The REC crew foreman told me I could go to the local REC shop and pick up a spool of cable to pull through the conduit. I could use what I needed and return the spool. They would charge me a very low price for what I used, I forget what it was but it was cheap. I didn't get to it right away and A few days later an REC truck came in with the spool of cable to pull through the conduit. One of the crew men, with arms the size of fence posts, pulled the cable off the reel, tied the nylon strap to it and shoved it down into the conduit. I hooked a tractor to the other end of the strap and slowly pulled while he fed it into the conduit. When the cable was pulled through, they cut it, we shook hands and they left. It left a good taste in my mouth.

We have a gazillion hog and turkey finishing sites in this area so the REC does sell a lot of electricity and it needs to be reliable power. They do a good job of making sure it IS reliable. The patronage check I get each year is about enough to pay for supper and that's it but we haven't been without power for more than a couple hours at a time for a good thirty years here in Northwest Iowa with our ice and snow storms.

Pretty sure coops are for chickens. Co-ops on the other hand......

(quoted from post at 09:20:31 06/18/16) I get my electric from a Co-op. It's supposed to be a lot cheaper than the big companies (NYSEG and National Grid in my area) but I really don't think it is
They're allotted 10 megawatts of cheap power, which they buy from NYSEG. When they go over the 10 megawatt limit, the rate goes through the roof. They are over their peak much of the time, so I think it ends up being just as expensive as the big companies.
I have oil heat, no central AC and electric hot water - three people in the house, and my bill runs around $200/month
Of course, this is NY, where everything is more expensive...

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I tried 2 of those companies. Went back to Nat. Grid as it's cheaper.

(quoted from post at 06:33:57 06/17/16) Tony,
Our co-op was sold to an investor several years ago, but somehow was allowed to continue to operate like a co-op, which meant that customers had no choice in their providers or rates. Now, we have Power-to-Choose which seems to have added a middle-man into the process: we have the same provider as before who inserts his monthly pass-thru charges, plus the company we choose will send us the bill (including their charges). Lines are still poorly maintained, and when I contact the state PUC, I'm told that our area is so sparsely populated that there is no competition for electric service, so our rates run around 15 cents per KWH. We were better off with the co-op.
Butch

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Very common corporate scam to add another layer and extra charges. Happens to every organization with money.