U.S. utilities are moving to replace coal plants with renewable-energy sources, but the shift is happening more slowly at the cooperatives that serve much of rural America.
Electric cooperatives sourced 32% of their power from coal in 2019, according to industry data. By comparison, the U.S. as a whole got about 23% of its electricity from coal that year, a 42-year low, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Co-ops, which provide power to about 42 million Americans, primarily in the Midwest and West, have remained more reliant on coal than investor-owned utilities in part because they don’t have the same means or motivation to retire coal plants.
Now, a growing number of co-op members are agitating for a faster transition to wind and solar energy, which is cleaner and increasingly cheaper than coal power. That push is creating tension within the organizations, which exist to share the costs of generating and procuring electricity for less-populous areas—leading some members to break away.
“The energy transition has been lagging for cooperatives,” said Duane Highley, chief executive of Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association, which serves more than a million customers in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska, and has seen some members depart. “But part of that is because we don’t have the same financial tools.”
