Reflecting on 2023: Successes and the Future

As we reflect on 2023, Union Rural Electric Cooperative (URE) celebrates its commitment to safety, reliability, and you, our valued members. Throughout the year, the cooperative has prioritized initiatives aimed at enhancing service quality and ensuring the safety of our members and the communities we are dedicated to serving.

In 2023 URE continued to grow while maintaining impressive financial, reliability, and member service metrics. Your electric cooperative continues to invest in our distribution system so that our members will benefit from safe and reliable energy.

Along with new growth, we continue to see interest from many of our members who are installing renewable energy generation in their homes and businesses. URE provides members with the option of net metering renewable energy installations, such as solar arrays or wind turbines. As of the end of 2023, URE has 2 net-metered wind turbines and 121 net-metered solar installations connected to URE lines.

Due mostly to a cooler-than-average summer and warmer-than-average winter, 2023 distribution operating margins were below budget, at $692,882. Combining this, however, with the allocations of capital credits from URE suppliers including our generation provider, Buckeye Power, allowed URE to remain financially strong while giving back more than $2.68 million dollars of capital credits to our members in 2023. Giving back money to members and former members is a key principle of the electric cooperative business structure. In total, as of the end of 2023, URE has given back over $46 million to our members.

Union County is once again the fastest-growing county in the state. The growth of our community has led to an increasing number of homes and businesses located in Union County and a fast growth of the URE distribution system. For the year, our crews installed 371 new electric services and 27 new natural gas services for a 3.1% net increase in new services. URE continues to be the fastest-growing cooperative in the state year-over-year by percentage of new services.

Distribution rates, or the cost charged to operate and maintain our local electric system as well as operate the office in Marysville, increased in 2023 for the residential class for the first time since 2014. As our costs for materials and labor continue to increase, we expect we will continue to see distribution rates rise. URE will continue to be diligent in operating as efficiently as possible. Fortunately, our strong growth in the area reduces the impact of rate increases as the number of members sharing fixed distribution costs continues to increase.

Looking forward, URE acknowledges potential challenges, such as reliability concerns stemming from power plant closures and costs driven by inflation. Nonetheless, the cooperative remains focused on our commitment to prioritizing member interests and delivering dependable service.