About our Cooperative

The first cooperative principle is voluntary and open membership. This was a driving factor in western Kentucky in 1936 and 1937 when neighbors and friends decided to work together to form Henderson Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation. Spurred by the need for electricity to improve the rural life style and economic benefits, these people voluntarily joined together to be better able to reach their dreams of electricity in their rural homes, farms and businesses. Soon, many people in western Kentucky and other parts of Kentucky and across the entire country were forming cooperative organizations to reach this same dream.

Standing (left to right): Paul Edd Butler, Lee Bearden, Larry Elder Seated (left to right): William Denton - Chair, Dr. James Sills - Vice Chair, John Myers - Secretary -Treasurer

Once established with an infrastructure of wires, poles, transformers, meters, and members consuming electricity, the local cooperatives were viable economic business organizations facing the prospect of significant growth in numbers of members and their increasing appetite for electricity. To meet long-term power supply concerns, it only took a few years to see one of the next cooperatives to be formed. In 1961, three cooperatives, Henderson-Union RECC, headquartered in Henderson, Green River RECC, headquartered in Owensboro, and Meade County RECC, headquartered in Brandenburg, created Big Rivers Electric Corporation.

In keeping to the cooperative principles of open membership, in 1984 Jackson Purchase Electric, located in Paducah, joined as the fourth Big Rivers' member. A later consolidation of Green River and Henderson-Union created Kenergy Corp., headquartered in Henderson. Fulfilling the cooperative principle of democratic member control, each member has two seats on the Big Rivers' board of directors.

Today the three members of Big Rivers serve approximately 107,000 member-consumers in 22 counties and Kenergy is the single largest cooperative in the country in terms of MWh sales due to serving two large smelter loads.

Big Rivers owns the Robert A. Reid Plant (130 MW), the Kenneth C. Coleman Plant (455 MW), the Robert D. Green Plant (454 MW) and the D. B. Wilson Plant (420 MW) totaling 1,459 net MW of generating capacity. In addition, it currently has rights to another 217 MW in a contractual arrangement with the HMP&L Station Two facility.

In July of 1998, Big Rivers leased the operations of the generation and its rights to the HMP&L facility to the LG&E Parties. Big Rivers provides power to its members from a power purchase agreement with LEM, member allocations from SEPA and the wholesale power market. Big Rivers owns, operates and maintains its 1,223-mile transmission system and provides for transmission of power to its members as well as to the LG&E Parties and other third-party entities served under the Open Access Transmission Tariff.

One of the strengths of the electric cooperative program is imbedded in the cooperative principle of cooperation among cooperatives. Throughout the nearly 70 years of electric cooperatives, the application of this principle has continued to deliver positive results. Through the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives, the commonwealth's cooperatives have worked together for more than 60 years to bring economies and synergies of scale in legislative efforts, training programs, and power line supplies. The same is true of NRECA, the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp., the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, and the Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange to name a few.

Big Rivers and its members have found that working together better serves the member-consumers at each of their cooperatives. These efforts have resulted in sharing information technology, safety programs, substation inspections, compliance matters and economic development. Big Rivers and its members have consistently found that working together on these and other matters have reduced costs and added value for approximately 107,000 member-consumers. Other possible shared service projects are being studied.

Big Rivers' success in the seven years since reorganization is due to cooperation and hard work. The board, the members and employees of Big Rivers have put their faith in the cooperative principles and their efforts into the business of operating a G&T cooperative. It is the success of cooperation.