Utility cooperative

Some utility cooperatives respect the seventh principle, Concern for community, through Operation Roundup schemes, whereby members can voluntarily have their bill rounded to the next currency unit (e.g. $55.37 becomes $56), with the difference (e.g. 63ยข) distributed to a fund for local charities.[2] Many such cooperatives exist in the rural United States and were created by the New Deal[3] to bring electric power and telephone service to rural areas, when the nearest investor-owned utility would not provide service since it believes that there would be insufficient revenue to justify the capital expenditures required.Many utility cooperatives strive to bring the best service at the lowest possible cost, but the high cost of maintaining the infrastructure that is needed to cover large rural areas without the support of large cities as a rich customer base often causes high prices.Nebraska's conversion from a mixture of power companies serving the state to a public power empire spanned the 1940s (the last privately owned utility line into the state being cut on December 29, 1949), with the creation of the PUDs in the Pacific Northwest starting about the same time and continuing with varying degrees of success over the following two decades.Small cooperatives often band together to achieve economies of scale, share expertise and stand together on regulatory issues.There are several statewide (and in Canada, province-wide) associations of cooperatives, including Kentucky[4] and Nova Scotia.Electric cooperatives in the Philippines are overseen by the government through the National Electrification Administration (NEA), and rates set by the cooperatives are regulated by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), an agency belonging to the Department of Energy (DOE).
Riverland Energy Cooperative near Arcadia, Wisconsin
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