NCRA Competitors

North Carolina’s electric cooperatives are a network of not-for-profit electric utility organizations powering the days and empowering the lives of 2.8 million North Carolinians from the mountains to the coast. There are 26 electric distribution cooperatives rooted in communities across the state, each committed to delivering homes, farms and businesses with safe, reliable, affordable and environmentally responsible electricity. There is a group of cooperative organizations in Raleigh that works for the 26 distribution cooperatives. This group includes: North Carolina Electric Membership Corporation, the power supplier to the co-ops; North Carolina Association of Electric Cooperatives, the trade association providing services to them; and Tarheel Electric Membership Association, the organization that supplies the cooperatives with the materials necessary to maintain their modern, sophisticated systems. Each cooperative is independent and owned by the people, called members, to whom it provides service. Those members elect the cooperative’s board of directors, which is responsible for establishing the cooperative’s policies, goals and strategies. The cooperative difference lies in our history and structure as not-for-profit utility providers that put people first. This difference positions us perfectly to operate daily with a unique purpose: to improve the quality of life in the communities we serve and empower our members to take control of their energy use.

By the 1930s, cities across the United States had been transformed into modern engines of commerce and culture thanks to electric service. But rural Americans remained in the dark. That changed on May 11, 1935, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Rural Electrification Administration, which sought to expand electric service beyond the country’s metropolitan areas. From this action arose Ohio’s electric cooperatives, which rapidly signed up new members and built the needed infrastructure to serve farms and households across the state. In 1941, Ohio’s cooperatives established Ohio Rural Electric Cooperatives, Inc. - a statewide services organization to foster collaboration and to advocate on their behalf. And in 1959, they joined together to form Buckeye Power, Inc. - a wholesale power generation and transmission cooperative to supply members with affordable power. Today, 25 electric cooperatives serve more than 380,000 homes and businesses in 77 of Ohio’s 88 counties — guided by the seven principles upon which they were founded. Together, we are Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives.

NARUC is a non-profit organization founded in 1889 whose members include the governmental agencies that are engaged in the regulation of utilities and carriers in the fifty States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. NARUC's member agencies regulate telecommunications, energy, and water utilities. NARUC represents the interests of State public utility commissions before the three branches of the Federal government.