Co-op Facts

It's a fact - electric co-ops are:

• Private, locally operated electric utility businesses
• Owned and regulated by their customers
• Established to provide near-cost electric service
• Governed by a board of directors elected from the membership, a board that sets policies, procedures and rates to be implemented by the cooperative’s professional staff

The 44 Minnesota electric distribution cooperatives together:

• employ about 2,400 people in Minnesota
• serve 730,000 customer meters, or about 1.6 million people of Minnesota’s 5.1 million residents. The median sized co-op is 6,387 members.  Cooperatives range in size between 2,000 to more than 120,000.
• cover 85 percent of the geographic area in Minnesota
• sell over 13.3 billion kWh per year (about 18 percent of the state's total kWh sold) or about $1 billion in revenues
• Operate the largest distribution network in the state by far, with more than 121,000 miles of electric distribution lines. More than Xcel Energy’s Minnesota operation (28,718), or the three private power companies in Minnesota combined (40,722).
• Average 6 consumers per mile of distribution line, compared with 38 consumers per mile for investor-owned electric utilities and 48 customers per mile for municipal electric utilities.