Co-ops Connect

by Reagan Mattingly

I start my day within one of the many Electric Co-ops located around Tennessee, feeding, and growing. I spark and crackle as I gain energy inside the power plant I call home. I remain antsy and charging until it is time for me to be released into high-voltage powerlines. I sprint until I reach my pitstop at the substation where my voltage is lessened to ensure that I can continue my run in the smaller wires. I shoot through the powerlines, my pace steady within the wires that could get me from Nashville to London 24 times. I am known for my reliability, but the credit should go to the Co-ops from which I am generated and their infrastructure that I call my racetrack.

As I enter the wires, I have to come to a stop. There is something wrong. The tunnel has a steep slope down that was not there yesterday. This must have been caused by the storm last night, I could hear the rain and wind from inside the plant. Storms are the bane of my existence, outages and fallen power lines stop me from running. I return to the plant and wait until the electric line workers repair the powerlines. Soon the lines are back up and running, but time has been lost. I enter the tracks and zoom through the tracks to ensure that I can complete my job.

I flood into a house, one of the many I will travel to today. I help the Tennessee Electric Co-ops to power one-third of the homes within the state. I take a detour on my trip to my next destination. Someone has plugged in a charger of some sort. I go from the charger into a laptop, and I can feel the battery filling with my energy as it recharges. There is a teenager using the device, she is authoring a short story for a contest created by the Electric Cooperatives. She types away on the keyboard, new words appearing on the screen replacing the ones she had written previously. Once she is finished, she rereads her work satisfied and shuts her laptop. If proven successful, her efforts will allow her to attend a trip to Washington D.C. with 2,000 other students that she will form friendships with, creating a community of students that get to embark on a once in a lifetime trip to the nation’s capital. Once the laptop is fully charged, I return to the powerlines and continue my run.

I am surging through the tracks to another part of the state in need of my energy, but I am traveling a route I have never been to before, the path feels foreign. Below the lines I can see the electric line workers packing up their supplies in the trucks and starting their drive back to the plant, a route I will soon follow on my return to the plant after my work is finished. I slow and listen as they talk casually to each other and grin with the accomplishment they feel with what they had built today. The workers are mostly volunteers that are living examples of one of the Seven Cooperative Principles. The Electric Co-ops allow people to become members of the organization by volunteering, and then they go on to fulfill the principle of education, training, and information by taking classes and training courses provided by the co-op. These programs teach these volunteers turned employees the importance of cooperation with coworkers, which is the foundation of the community that is created among the workers constructing the power lines that I zing through to provide power to Tennesseans.

Once I reach the limits of my distance for this run, I reverse on the wires and speed past the electric line workers making their way back to the plant. I zoom through the tracks passing houses brightly lit as the sun starts to fade. I can feel the branches of my energy breaking off to fulfill the demand for light within the homes before everyone begins to shut down for the night approaching. As this happens, the need for regeneration increases within me and I continue my final run the tracks towards the Electric Co-op.

When the power lines come to a stop, I manage my way into the circuit of the plant itself making my way through the building. As I make my return, my mind wanders to powerlines beyond Tennessee and those along my typical route. The Tennessee Electric Co-op is partnering with other cooperatives and electrical companies, creating a large community of electrical workers whether it be engineers, marketing teams, or board members elected by those within the company that strive to expand the boundaries in which my energy can be accessed. This community is working together, another Cooperative Principle used by the Electrical Co-op, to stretch the distance of my tracks so that I can use my energy to power homes of more people. With that thought, I recharge and prepare to run again tomorrow, and bring power to the 2.8 million Tennesseans who get their electricity from the Tennessee Electric Cooperative.