It’s time for you to get the credit —capital credits, that is― for helping build, sustain, and grow your local electric cooperative. Because Tri-County Electric Cooperative is a member-owned, not-for-profit organization, at the beginning of every year, any excess revenues or margins from the previous year are allocated to our members and later paid out as capital credits. As a member/owner, this means you benefit from any margins produced by the cooperative. Tri-County Electric Cooperative retires capital credits (also known as patronage credits) to members each year.

When you signed up to receive electric service from Tri-County Electric Cooperative, you became a member of an electric utility. While investor-owned utilities return a portion of any profits back to their shareholders, electric cooperatives operate on an at-cost basis. So instead of returning leftover funds, known as margins, to folks who might not live in the same region or even the same state as you do, Tri-County Electric Cooperative allocates and annually retires capital credits (also called patronage dividends, patronage refunds, patronage capital, or equity capital) based on how much electricity you purchased during a year.

This year, members received capital credits from about 25 years ago. That may seem like a long time ago. However, those funds helped us keep the lid on rates, reduced the amount of money we needed to borrow from outside lenders to build, maintain, and expand a reliable electric distribution system, and covered emergency expenses.

For more information on this part of the cooperative business, read the following Q & A: