CEO, Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association
There are some things in life that are just plain nice to not have to worry about. I am certain that I have never walked into my local grocery store and thought, “I wonder if they have eggs today?” They are always on the shelf. Because of the fine people who pick up my trash, I know that twice a week, the can outside my house will be empty.
When my kids go to school, the door will be open and some amazing people are waiting to teach them — unless it’s a snow day, in which case the teachers are happier than the kids!
There is an amazing amount of hard work by good people that goes into making everyday life happen. Friends and neighbors, relatives and strangers, pipefitters and PhDs alike — we all depend on our fellow man and the contributions each individually makes so we can collectively take a breather and focus on what is important to us.
Your co-op is no different. Delivering reliable, affordable electric power to you is one of the most complicated engineering feats of all time. An army of hard-working folks labor around the clock to make sure you don’t have to think about it when you turn on the light or plug in your phone. And while everyone appreciates a pat on the back once in a while, those same everyday heroes know that your lack of attention is a sign of a job well done.
But the job is getting harder and harder. Remember what you learned in high school about basic economics? Supply and demand of a product drive the price. For electricity, price has remained remarkably stable over decades even as demand has increased. In the years after World War II, for instance, Americans started using a lot more electricity after installing central air conditioning in their homes. But the price of electricity didn’t drastically increase because more power plants were built, and supply kept pace with demand.
Here in 2023, we face an interesting problem. Demand for electricity is increasing faster and faster each year. Internet-connected smartphones, digital currency, cloud computing, data storage and increasingly automated manufacturing processes are among many examples of increasing demand for electricity. And while your home’s appliances use less energy than they used to, how many things do you use in a day that plug in or require a charge? And for more and more of us, the new item that needs to be plugged in the most will be our car.
But supply is not growing fast enough — or in some cases, supply might actually be reduced. As the last of the plants that were built to power the first generation of air conditioners back in the 1940s and 1950s are at the end of their useful lives, we don’t have many practical options to reliably replace them.
In economics class, the outcome to this situation would mean scarcity and higher prices. But in the real world, the outcome of growing demand for power and not enough supply is blackouts first and higher prices later. And in a society that demands always-on electric power, that is not acceptable.
Solving these complex problems will require that you notice what your co-op is doing from time to time. The good news is that we are your neighbors. Your cooperative is locally owned and operated by people you can trust. So when it comes time to talk about electricity, you’ll be among friends and people who care just as much as you do about this great place we call home.
