Who We Are

Big Rivers Electric Corporation is a member-owned, not-for-profit, generation and transmission cooperative (G&T) headquartered in Owensboro, KY. We provide wholesale electric power and services to three distribution cooperative members across 22 counties in western Kentucky. The member cooperatives are Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative, Kenergy Corporation, and Meade County Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation. The three member-owners of Big Rivers serve more than 120,000 members.

Big Rivers owns and operates 936 net MW of generating capacity from three power stations: Robert D. Green (454 MW), Robert Reid CT (65 MW), and D.B. Wilson (417 MW). Total power capacity is 1,114 MW, including contracted capacity from the Southeastern Power Administration (SEPA). We operate and maintain a 1,353 mile transmission system and provide for transmission of power to our members as well as third-party entities served under the Open Access Transmission Tariff.

1937 – Rural electricity comes to western Kentucky. Henderson County REA was a regional first in joining the new nationwide cooperative program. In 1937, the local REA raised its first power pole in Henderson, and ran the first power line to Cardinal Farms Peaches. Henderson REA would later evolve into a founding Member-Owner for Big Rivers and later became Henderson-Union County REA.

1961 – The start of power generation and transmission. Henderson REA and Green River Electric (which later merged to become Kenergy), plus Meade County RECC handled local electricity distribution but realized a need for their own long-term power generator. These cooperatives would pool their resources to become the Members and owners of Big Rivers Electric Corporation. Big Rivers would hold the groundbreaking for the first power plant in 1967, and add Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative as another Member-Owner in 1977.

1969 – The first Big Rivers power plant comes online. After a two year building process, Big Rivers begins producing electricity from Coleman Station in Hawesville. As the need for electricity grew, Big Rivers would later expand Coleman Station to three units and build Sebree Station in Webster County.

1984 – More power generation for Western Kentucky. Big Rivers added a third coal-fired power plant site in Ohio County, with Wilson Station coming online in 1984. Wilson Station is currently Big Rivers main coal-fired plant, as other plants reached the end of their efficient lifespan. Wilson Station received $100 million in scrubber improvements in 2022 to boost efficiency and decrease emissions. In 2022, Coleman Station was demolished, and Sebree Station was converted to natural gas.

2023 – A new home in Owensboro. After using Henderson as a home base for decades, Big Rivers moved to a new Headquarters in downtown Owensboro. The new location allows for better access to the entire 22-county service territory and key large industrial projects, and the new building provides updated technology and space to meet the cooperative’s future power needs. A new center for Transmission, Energy Control, and Engineering is also in development in Daviess County.

The history of our cooperative

The first cooperative principle is voluntary and open membership. This was a driving factor in western Kentucky in 1936 and 1937 when neighbors and friends decided to work together to form Henderson Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation. Spurred by the need for electricity to improve the rural life style and economic benefits, these people voluntarily joined together to be better able to reach their dreams of electricity in their rural homes, farms and businesses. Soon, many people in western Kentucky and other parts of Kentucky and across the entire country were forming cooperative organizations to reach this same dream.

Once established with an infrastructure of wires, poles, transformers, meters, and members consuming electricity, the local cooperatives were viable economic business organizations facing the prospect of significant growth in numbers of members and their increasing appetite for electricity. To meet long-term power supply concerns, it only took a few years to see one of the next cooperatives to be formed. In 1961, three cooperatives, Henderson-Union RECC, headquartered in Henderson, Green River RECC, headquartered in Owensboro, and Meade County RECC, headquartered in Brandenburg, created Big Rivers Electric Corporation. Today the three member-owners of Big Rivers serve more than 121,000 members in 22 counties.

The cooperative
difference

One of the strengths of the electric cooperative program is imbedded in the principle of cooperation among cooperatives. Throughout the nearly 70 years of electric cooperatives, the application of this principle has continued to deliver positive results. Through the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives, the commonwealth’s cooperatives have worked together for more than 60 years to bring economies and synergies of scale in legislative efforts, training programs, and power line supplies. The same is true of NRECA, the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp., the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, and the Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange to name a few.

Big Rivers and its member-owners have found that working together better serves the members at each of their cooperatives. These efforts have resulted in sharing information technology, safety programs, substation inspections, compliance matters and economic development. Big Rivers and its member-owners have consistently found that working together on these and other matters have reduced costs and added value for more than 120,000 members.