Member Cooperatives

Cooperatives, by their very nature, are teamwork entities. From the early days when neighbors worked together to seek solutions for bringing electricity to their homes, businesses and farms, the natural approach was to team up to accomplish these goals. This teamwork ultimately led to leadership and this leadership was always in touch with the team.

When the need for a long-term reliable power supply became apparent as the catalyst for economic growth in western Kentucky, Henderson-Union Rural Electric Cooperative, headquartered in Henderson, Green River Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, headquartered in Owensboro, and Meade County Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, headquartered in Brandenburg, teamed together to find the solution.

The answer was Big Rivers Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation which was founded in 1961 (later to become Big Rivers Electric Corporation) to become the wholesale power supplier to these systems and their emerging economic development loads. In 1984 Jackson Purchase Electric Cooperative Corporation, headquartered in Paducah, elected to become the fourth member of the team that owns Big Rivers. A later consolidation of Green River and Henderson-Union created Kenergy Corp., headquartered in Henderson.

Today the three members of Big Rivers serve approximately 111,000 member-consumers in 22 western Kentucky counties, with Kenergy being the largest single electric distribution cooperative in the United States in terms of megawatt hours (MWh) sales due to serving two large smelter loads.