Cooperatives were the first to serve rural areas. They were formed when IOUs refused to serve sparsely populated areas. Because IOUs are profit motivated, they didn't see the value of serving rural and suburban areas. Cooperatives are involved in their communities. We live here, too, and take an active interest in bettering our communities through involvement in local schools, civic clubs and business organizations.
Electric cooperatives help each other out.
Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative is one of hundreds of co-ops across the country providing electricity and other services to rural and urban America. When a major storm or other disaster forces an outage, neighboring cooperatives often come to the rescue, providing their equipment and personnel to get the power back on fast. Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative has an average of six consumers per mile compared to an average of 34 per mile for an IOU and 50 for a municipal. We have fewer large industrial and commercial consumers than IOUs. Our revenue comes from serving many small accounts, homes, farms and communities.