History
Wake Electric Cooperative is a rural electric distribution cooperative owned and controlled by thousands of people just like
YOU—the consumer-members. You are now a part of a group of people working together operating in a cooperative business to provide
electric service for all members. The co-op purchases electricity at a wholesale price and then delivers it to its members at the lowest
manageable rates for operation. All monies paid to the co-op in excess of its operation expenses are called member dividends and are returned to the members.
Background Information
Wake Electric was organized as a cooperative in 1940 and operates on a nonprofit basis. Originally funded with loans by the Rural Electrification Administration of the US Government, Wake Electric has repaid its government loans and is now privately financed. We do not have stockholders, but are owned by the people and companies we serve. Our members have accumulated more than $31 million in equity in the cooperative through their purchases. Equity is retired in cash by the cooperative to the members on a regular basis. More than $6 million in equity has been retired since 1995.
Wake Electric is governed by a nine member Board of Directors representing eight single-member geographic districts and one at-large district throughout the service area. Directors are elected at-large for rotating three-year terms at the cooperative’s annual meeting.
Wake Electric has more than 27,000 active electric service accounts. Electric revenue in 2005 is expected to exceed $50 million. As a non-profit cooperative, Wake Electric is exempt from most state and federal income taxes. Wake Electric is not exempt from other taxes, such as state sales taxes [$1.2 million], state and local gross receipts taxes [$1.5 million] and county and local property taxes [$0.6 million].
Wake Electric has provided electricity to our members in seven counties [Wake, Franklin, Granville, Vance, Durham, Johnston and Nash] of North Carolina since 1941. While some of the service area remains rural, much has become suburban as the Raleigh-Durham-Research Triangle Park metropolitan area has expanded. Over the years, Wake Electric has invested more than $130 million in its distribution system consisting of 60 miles of high voltage transmission lines, 17 substations, 1,850 miles of overhead distribution lines and 730 miles of underground distribution lines. The primary customer service office is located in downtown Wake Forest with additional customer service branch offices in Oxford, Zebulon and Louisburg. Administrative, engineering and operations facilities are located in Youngsville.
High Tech, Customer Friendly Solutions
Wake Electric operates its electric distribution system with state-of-the-art technology. Using a Customer Information & Billing System operating over a high-speed network, all customer service offices have access to real-time customer information. All office employees have access to desktop network computers. Full page monthly bills are multi-color laser printed with payments processed by fully automated remittance processing center. Payments can be made in person at our local offices, by bank draft, over the Internet or by credit card. Full function telephone customer service is available from 7 am to 9 pm, weekdays. An automated telephone customer service system and Internet information and payments are available around the clock. Wake Electric has invested in the high technology systems necessary to provide top-quality electric service to its members. These systems also provide complete real-time information so that our personnel can provide top-quality customer service that is both friendly and fully functional.
Commitment to Community
In addition to the Annual Meeting, usually held at the Louisburg College Auditorium, where more than 1,200 members and guests attend, Wake Electric also offers smaller scale opportunities for involvement. Participation in Wake Electric’s Member Advisory Committee, which is open and voluntary, provides two additional opportunities each year with at least one meeting in local communities on a very small scale. Also, we recently invited 7 business leaders in the Wake Forest area to serve on our Wake Forest Business Advisory Council.
Wake Electric provides community access to its Conference Center in Youngsville. Dozens of community and business groups have used the facility for training, meetings and conferences.
Wake Electric has been a leader in local community development projects. We offer scholarship programs to students, the Washington Youth Tour for students, support the “Bright Ideas” teacher grant program and created the “Give Us an A” program. We regularly teach power line safety classes in schools and for community groups. Our members can opt to have their bills “rounded-up” to the nearest dollar with the money distributed by the Wake Electric Care Foundation, an independent charitable organization. More than $120,000 per year is contributed and disbursed through the Operation Round-Up program.
Why rural electrification?
As late as the mid-1930s, nine out of ten rural homes were without electric service. The farmer milked his cows by hand in the dim light of a kerosene lantern. His wife was a slave to the wood range and washboard.
The unavailability of electricity in rural areas kept their economies entirely and exclusively to agriculture. Factories and businesses, of course, preferred to locate in cities where electric power was easily acquired.
Even as late as July 1935, a group of utility company executives wrote a report in which they claimed that, in light of their earlier extensive research work, “there are very few farms requiring electricity for major farm operations that are not now served.” 
This was a statement that was later to haunt the commercial electric industry when the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) and the rural electric cooperatives proved how mistaken this concept was. For many years, however, power companies continued to ignore the rural areas of the nation, except where there were conditions necessary to assure early profits.
The first official action of the federal government pointing the way to the present rural electrification program came with the passage of the Tennessee Valley Act (TVA) in May 1933. This act authorized the TVA Board to construct transmission lines to serve “farms and small villages that are not otherwise supplied with electricity at reasonable rates.”
The idea of providing federal assistance to accomplish rural electrification gained ground rapidly when President Roosevelt took office in 1933 and began his New Deal programs.
On May 11, 1935, Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 7037 establishing the REA. It was not until a year later that the Rural Electrification Act was passed, and the lending program that became the REA got underway.
Within four years following the close of the war, the number of rural electric systems in operation doubled, the number of consumers connected more than tripled, and the miles of energized line grew more than five fold. By 1953, more than 90 percent of U.S. farms had electricity.
Today about 99 percent of the nation’s farms have electric service. Most rural electrification is the product of locally owned rural electric cooperatives that got their start by borrowing funds from REA to build lines and provide service on a nonprofit basis. Today the REA is the Rural Utilities Service and is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
After almost 60 years, REA was abolished by a massive reorganization of the Department of Agriculture in 1994. Its responsibilities were transferred to a new agency, the Rural Utilities Service (RUS). The electric loan program continues to operate much as it did under REA.
An important part of the history of electric cooperatives has been the development of power marketing agencies (PMAs).
In 1937, the federal government established the first PMA, the Bonneville Power Administration. The government then went on to form four more PMAs to market the power generated at 133 federal dams across the country. Today there are three PMAs in addition to Bonneville: Southeastern Power Administration; Southwestern Power Administration; and Western Area Power Administration.
The federal law that governs PMAs gives preference in the sale of power at-cost to public bodies and electric cooperatives. The availability of low-cost power to electric cooperatives has promoted economic development and has offset the cost of serving sparsely populated areas.
