Farmers RECC reports 2022-23 loss of $1.5M

By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1

Farmers Electric Cooperative Corporation, otherwise known as Farmers RECC, had its annual meeting at Cave Area Convention Center on Thursday, July 25, 2024.

Founded in 1938, the nonprofit cooperative serves more than 26,000 meters throughout its 11 county territory. As the names tells Farmers RECC is a cooperative-style of company — meaning they are “owned by the members they serve” — and with that model comes seven “cooperative principles” one of which is the principle of democratic member control.

In that spirit, the Farmers RECC Board of Directors meet, along with members of the public — both in-person and via the livestream, to discuss their previous year. This was their 86 annual meeting.

Though not first in the reporting order, Farmers RECC Treasurer Brandi Williams discussed the 2023 financials saying the cooperatives revenue dropped by 7.5 percent compared to 2022 “mainly due to milder weather.” Caralyne Pennington, director of member and public communications, wrote in an email that the difference between the two years in their revenues was $4,585,793.

However, at the same time Williams reported their “power purchase cost” — the expense it takes to buy their power from East Kentucky Power — also reduced by 9.98 percent, or, as Pennington said, $4,575,904.

“These reductions [combined with] the two significant storms in March and June combined with the rising cost of hardware lead to an overall operating loss of $1.5 million,” Williams said. “We did still meet all financial benchmarks and requirements.”

President and CEO Toby Moss also gave his presentation speaking about the cooperative’s mission, its customer service and team members, and the current and future power grid demands, specifically he mentioned AI data center and electric vehicle demands. To compensate he briefly mentioned different types of renewable energy.

“We are not adverse to any kinds of power generation,” Moss said. “I’ll call us energy agnostic; we want the best, most reliable service for our members and we want to save as much money as we can.”

“Nuclear has been working just fine for the navy carriers and submarines for about 30 years so I think we’re at a place where we can learn how to use it,” Moss said. “Just to the south of us [the Tennessee Valley Authority] is pursuing this…and we’re watching them closely and trying to work with them…and we’re hopeful that’s successful.”

In other business addressed during the 40 minute meeting was the announcement of the election results in which all current officers were reelected and the monies they returned to their customers.