What is a Public Power Community
A public powered community (municipality) is owned by the city it serves. It exists to provide a public service to the citizens, businesses and industries of the community. A public power electric utility provides affordable, reliable electricity and then puts its revenue right back into the community it powers. Public Power utilities focus on the specific needs of customers, including high reliability and lower rates, as well as local priorities, which may include new technologies, environmental concerns or other community goals.
- Accountable: The people elect city councils or commissions that either directly oversee the utilities or hire a city manager. Decision are made to benefit the community, not shareholders or others with no connection to the city. (NOT Wall Street
- Affordable: Rates are not-for-profit and are set to cover costs for providing service, not earn a return for investors. Average municipal utility rates are considerably lower than rural electric cooperatives and investor owned utilities.
- Local: When customers need help with an outage, a new connection, paying a bill or anything in between calls are answered by local utility employees that are fellow citizens
- Reliability: Many public power systems have local generation. Combined with an extensive network of mutual aid-cities helping cities after tornadoes and other weather events public power offers the most reliable service to customers.