North Carolina's Electric Cooperatives

Electric Membership Cooperatives provide electric service to over 2.5 million North Carolinians. Working as a consultant for the Environmental Defense Fund, I mapped key characteristics of the twenty-eight North Carolina electric membership coops and presented my findings in a series of three webinars. Coops can be a powerful ally in the efforts to provide clean energy options within low-resource communities. The information provided in these analyses will help craft a strategic campaign to promote sustainable energy policy across all of North Carolina.


 
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Two graphics contextualize Electric Membership Cooperatives. In the chart above, utility mix is compared among eight nine states. To the right, the residential patterns of membership are mapped alongside the location of North Carolina Electric Membership Cooperatives. 

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The socioeconomic characteristics of Electric Membership Cooperatives were analyzed in comparison to the rest of North Carolina. On the left, a series of maps illustrate three key indicators of economic stress. Poverty rates are significantly higher in coop territories compared to non-coop areas of North Carolina. While unemployment rates are similar in both zones, unemployment is especially common in two coops in northeastern North Carolina.

 

Two charts illustrate energy affordability among electric coops. On the left, coops are listed by the percent of income spent on electricity bills, highlighting four coops where customers spend more than 5% of income on electricity. On the right, the matrix gives a sense of scale by representing income on the vertical axis and monthly bills on the horizontal axis. 

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Two example slides from the webinar presentations given to EDF staff and EDF membership.