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Electric Deregulation
On January 1, 2001, Ohio enacted legislation for electric deregulation. Deregulation is also known as “restructuring” because the law didn’t completely deregulate the electric industry. It simply restructured the generation and transmission portion to offer customers of investor-owned utilities a choice of provider. Distribution services (delivering power to the home or business) remains with the customers’ current electric company.

Electric cooperatives are not-for-profit utilities
The law did not require municipals or electric cooperatives to deregulate. The legislators recognized that both municipal electric companies and electric cooperatives are different in nature, purpose, and goals.
Cardinal generating facility near Steubenville supplies the majority of power to all the electric cooperative members in Ohio.

Unlike investor-owned utility companies, electric cooperatives are not-for-profit, locally owned and controlled by the people they serve, providing electricity at the lowest possible cost to their member-owners.

None of the 24 electric cooperatives chose to be a part of electric deregulation in Ohio. They knew that at this time, deregulation would actually increase costs and wasn’t a good choice for cooperative members. Please see the links on the left for more information.