Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. of Little Rock has been supplying the state’s hometown power cooperatives with electricity for 75 years.
And the nonprofit wholesale power cooperative is celebrating the landmark.
AECC incorporated on July 11, 1949, a time of rapid electrification in rural Arkansas.
It provides electricity today for 1.2 million electric cooperative members in Arkansas and neighboring states. Stressing reliability and affordability, it generates and transmits power for the 17 member-owned Arkansas distribution cooperatives. It also offers other services.
According to a news release noting the anniversary, AECC has a diverse power generation portfolio. That mix includes two plants burning natural gas or oil, three hydroelectric plants on the Arkansas river and four natural-gas burning plants.
AECC also owns a share some of four coal-burning plants, though two will retire within six years. The White Bluff Steam Election Station in Redfield is set to shut down in 2028 and the Independence Steam Electric Station in Newark will shutter in 2030.
“This will represent a loss of 25% of AECC’s power portfolio,” the release said. The cooperative’s generating capacity is now 4,269 megawatts.
Its newest power generator, the 122-megawatt Woodruff County Solar project near the former Carl Bailey Generation Station in Augusta, should start commercial operation this summer.
AECC also has 20 to 25-year power purchase agreements for about 474 megawatts of wind energy and has set up contracts to receive up to 27 megawatts of solar energy, the cooperative said.
All of that adds up to nearly 800 megawatts, about 20% of the cooperative’s generation portfolio.
AECC’s sister cooperative, Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Inc., serves the state’s distribution cooperatives and owns a subsidiary that manufactures electric transformers. AECI is even older than AECC, having incorporated in 1942.
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