Our History

CEC Mission Statement

Keeping our core priorities in focus 24/7: Safety, Service, Member Satisfaction, and Employee Development.

About CEC

There’s a vibrant new energy taking shape across America; members like you are transforming rural and small communities.

CEC is an electric cooperative, built by the communities we serve to deliver reliable, sustainable and affordable energy. And, because we answer to local members like you, rather than out-of-town shareholders, our electric cooperative has a unique understanding of our local needs. In fact, many of our leaders and employees live right here in the community.

CEC is a community-focused organization, providing jobs and investing in the community through programs like Bright Ideas, Scholarships, Meredith’s Miracles, Community Christmas, Economic Development, Electrical Safety Demonstrations and Youth Tour.

Being a member of a cooperative distinguishes you from other electric utility consumers, as well as other business relationships, in important ways.

Co-op leaders are members of our local community. Our six board members live right here in our local area and are elected by co-op members just like you. Board members serve three-year terms and elections are held at our annual meeting each spring.

We belong to the communities we serve. Since we are a cooperative, any excess revenue is shared back with members, over time through capital credits.

We follow the same seven cooperative principles that all cooperative businesses follow.

Though we are local and cover 2,700 miles of power lines in parts of six counties, we’re also part of something bigger. Across the country, electric cooperatives work together to restore power during major outages, develop new technologies and build infrastructure that benefits us all.

In addition to our energy efficiency loan program, heat pump rebates and a solar demonstration project that provides real-time data on our website, we’re always looking for new ways to help our members save energy, save money and take advantage of the technology that’s changing the way we live and work.

The opportunity to create something new here, while embracing traditional community values, has never been greater. It’s a passion we share with you, our members, for making our community a place we’re all proud to call home.

That’s the source of our new energy at Covington Electric Cooperative.

CEC History

The organization of Covington Electric Cooperative in 1944 rescued many south Alabama farm families from the dark despair of life without electricity. The Rural Electrification Administration, enacted into law by Congress in 1936, offered long-term, low-interest loans to commercial power companies, cooperatives or other groups for financing construction of power facilities into rural areas. Commercial power companies chose not to take advantage of this means of financing rural power lines. Therefore, farmers were left to do the job themselves. They banded together, working cooperatively.

In 1941, no more than 14 percent of the farm families in Covington Electric Cooperative’s present coverage area had electric service. Cooperatives faced problems obtaining wholesale electric power for distribution to members. To combat this problem, 14 Rural Electric Administration (REA) co-ops in Alabama and Northwest Florida formed a “cooperative of cooperatives” (Alabama Electric Cooperative) to generate and transmit wholesale electric power to its members. Alabama Electric Cooperative changed its name to Power South Energy Cooperative in 2008 to better reflect its geographical service territory and to position the company for future growth opportunities.

Today, Covington Electric Cooperative’s more than 2,700 miles of line transmits electrical service to more than 24,300 meters in parts of six counties: Covington, Coffee, Crenshaw, Dale, Geneva, and Escambia. Covington Electric Cooperative’s headquarters is located in Sanford, AL (near Andalusia). It has a branch office in Enterprise. To learn more about the history of rural electrification, visit the United States Department of Agriculture.