Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation Revenue and Competitors

Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation (AECC), based in Little Rock, is proud to provide power for about 460,000 members of Arkansas' 17 electric distribution cooperatives. Long considered one of the top generation and transmission cooperatives in the nation, AECC has assets of about $1.1 billion and annual energy sales of about $468 million. AECC provides power to its members - the 17 electric distribution cooperatives - through its diverse generation assets, which include three hydropower plants; three natural gas/oil-fired plants and two natural gas-fired-only plants. AECC also co-owns portions of three low-cost coal-fired plants. And when it is more economical to purchase power on the wholesale market than to run its plants, AECC's dispatchers do so to save its members money. AECC was created in 1949 to provide Arkansas' electric cooperatives with a reliable and affordable power supply. At the time, the cooperatives were faced with rising electricity costs and shrinking power supplies. At the root of the problem was the cooperatives' dependence on investor-owned utilities for wholesale power. Although the cooperatives had built their own distribution systems - the lines and wires that transport electricity to their members - they had not built power plants and were prohibited by state law from doing so.