Picture a map dotted with dozens of small electric co-ops, each serving a few thousand rural meters. Above them sits one large cooperative with power plants and high-voltage lines, and every one of those small co-ops buys its wholesale power from it and helps own it. Before you read on, decide which tier owns the poles and wires running down the local roads, and which tier actually generates the power.
The small co-ops own the local poles, wires, and meters. The big one generates and transmits. That split is the heart of how electric cooperatives are organized. The small ones are distribution co-ops, and the large supplier they jointly own is a generation-and-transmission (G&T) co-op. Basin Electric and Tri-State are real G&T co-ops; the distribution co-ops that buy from them are their owners, not just their customers. A G&T co-op generates and transmits wholesale power; the distribution co-ops own the last mile and co-own the G&T.
This is the world an investor-owned utility (IOU) buyer rarely touches, and it works on different money. A co-op is owned by the members it serves, so it earns no profit for outside shareholders. When it takes in more than it needs, the surplus goes back to members as capital credits, also called patronage refunds. There is no rate base earning a shareholder return, which is the single biggest difference from the IOU revenue model.
The other piece most courses skip is where the money to build comes from. Rural co-ops were wired up starting in the 1930s with help from the federal Rural Electrification Administration, now the USDA Rural Utilities Service (RUS). RUS still lends to electric co-ops at low rates, and it is the financing channel you have to know if you sell into co-op country. Municipal utilities (public power, owned by a city or town) lean on their own channel, tax-exempt municipal revenue bonds, but for cooperatives the load-bearing fact is RUS.
Distribution co-ops range from tiny systems to large ones. Pedernales Electric Cooperative in Texas is the largest distribution co-op in the country. Whatever the size, the pattern holds: local poles and wires owned by the members, wholesale power from a G&T they co-own, and a federal lending channel an IOU buyer would never have on their radar.
Rate cases, cost-allocation fights, and FERC/NERC jurisdiction shifts move procurement timelines as much as any supply constraint. The Feeder tracks the regulatory and market signals that reset lead times, free, every week.