Henry County REMC is a not-for-profit, member-owned, electric cooperative. It is also a distribution cooperative, one of 18 such member-owners of Hoosier Energy, a generation and transmission cooperative.

Rural electric cooperatives began forming in the 1930s when investor-owned utilities determined that it was not in the best interest of their business to serve rural America.

That remains the case today. However, investor-owned utilities and rural cooperatives do work together for their mutual benefit. Cooperatives can use transmission lines between more populated areas to benefit their members.

Through July 15 of this year, approximately 72% of the outage hours for Henry County REMC members have not been on the Henry County side of things.

We know that’s frustrating, but the electric supply chain is made up of three segments — generation, where electricity is produced; transmission, which moves power over long distances; and distribution, which moves power over shorter distances to end users.

Henry County REMC cannot do all three, which is why we are a member of Hoosier Energy. Even though Duke Energy owns the transmission lines we use, Hoosier Energy works closely with Duke Energy to keep the focus on reliability improvements to the lines that serve our members. Hoosier Energy also has its own generation assets, which helps keep our rates down as we share the cost with the other 17 members as a community of cooperatives.

This community allows Henry County REMC to take advantage of Hoosier’s purchasing power not only in terms of rate but also with supplies, support, expertise and minimizing risk.

Based on the number of members per mile of line, electric cooperatives should have a rate more than five times higher than investor-owned utilities, but they don’t.

There are many power lines between your home and the power plant, and Henry County REMC takes over at the substation. Regarding the distribution lines Henry County REMC owns, we strive to do our best to provide safe, reliable, and affordable electricity to our members in Henry, Fayette, Rush, Hancock, Delaware, Madison, Randolph, and Wayne counties.