CEO’s Message – February 2026

A Single Motivation

It would be nice to be able to predict the weather and know in advance if we’re going to have 6 inches of snow on the ground or if the high will be 80 degrees in what should be 1 of the coldest months in Alabama.

But since I can’t predict the weather, all I can do is encourage Wiregrass Electric Cooperative members to remain vigilant during February. We could still have some very cold weather and potential peak demand days.

As a cooperative, we’re in business to serve our members, and we wouldn’t be doing our jobs fully if we didn’t inform members about how demand can impact their monthly bills and encourage them to conserve energy during peak times.

Our members, after all, are the only reason we exist as a cooperative. We are an at-cost electricity distributor. We are governed by a board of trustees elected by our members. Your trustees help set the strategic direction for the cooperative.

There’s been some publicity recently surrounding electric rates in Alabama. A private utility is in business like most other businesses — it provides a service and hopes to make a profit so it can stay in business. Whatever your view on that is, we want our Wiregrass Electric members to understand we are an at-cost electric provider; we’re not here to make a profit for Wall Street. In fact, in 2025, the cooperative returned more than $2.1 million in capital credits (margins) to members.

There’s no hidden agenda. We’re not trying to make millions of dollars in profits for investors hundreds of miles away. We’re local, and our only motivation is to serve our members as a not-for-profit electric cooperative.

Meeting the needs of our members is not without challenges. Costs keep rising on everything, and the electric industry has not been immune. Infrastructure costs are up anywhere between 20% to 100%, and that includes utility poles, transformers, conductor wire, concrete, circuit breakers, smart meters, and copper wiring. The cost of generating power has gone up across the board whether the energy source is hydropower, natural gas, or solar.

We know rising costs have had an impact on our members in the last few years, which is why we have restructured our rates to recoup costs more fairly, especially when it comes to demand. And while that demand rate will go up in March, the energy rate will go down. We communicate and emphasize ways members can help reduce their own costs. The $4 demand charge is still not half of what the wholesale demand rate our cooperative is charged, but the $4 per KW charge is a pricing signal that helps more fairly distribute wholesale power cost to members, while at the same time sending a pricing signal to encourage behavioral changes in energy consumption during peak times for the cooperative.

Our job as a cooperative is to keep the lights on for members and to do it safely, reliably, and affordably. The cooperative’s trustees, employees, senior staff, and outside business partners all contribute to that goal.

But we have to cover the cost of our peak demand and the wholesale power required to meet it in order to maintain reliability. We have to find ways to keep our operation costs down and maintain safety so that we can have affordable rates.

Our members can help keep the system’s costs down and lower their own electricity costs in the process. When considering rates charged by other utilities, I believe Wiregrass Electric is incredibly competitive, even with the challenges we face with rising prices, as well as increasing generation and capacity costs.

What is the alternative? Our members could be paying for electricity from a private company where there is more focus on profitability.

As your cooperative, we do it for you. There is no other motivation.