Reliable electricity doesn’t happen by accident. It takes coordination across an entire system — from where power is generated, to how it moves across the region, to the final delivery to your home or business. I want to take a moment to explain how that system works and, just as importantly, highlight the critical role your local electric cooperative plays in delivering dependable service every day.
Electricity moves through three interconnected parts: generation, transmission, and distribution. Each one is essential, carrying different responsibilities and costs. All three must work together for the lights to turn on.
Electricity begins at power plants that generate energy using a mix of resources such as coal, natural gas, wind, hydro, and solar. Todd-Wadena Electric Cooperative does not own power plants. Instead, we purchase electricity from our wholesale power suppliers, Great River Energy (GRE) and Western Area Power Administration (WAPA). GRE is a generation and transmission cooperative that supplies power to TWEC and other cooperatives across Minnesota, while WAPA provides cost-based hydropower generated primarily from large federal dams in the Upper Midwest. These power sources help balance reliability, resource diversity, and long-term cost stability for our members.
Members sometimes ask why TWEC doesn’t simply generate its own power. Owning and operating power plants requires significant capital investment, specialized expertise, and long-term exposure to fuel costs and regulatory risk. By working with GRE and WAPA, TWEC shares those risks with other cooperatives, gains access to a broad mix of energy resources, and avoids placing the financial burden of power plant ownership directly on local members. This cooperative approach strengthens reliability while helping keep costs more stable over time.
Once electricity is generated, it must travel long distances before it reaches local communities. This happens through high-voltage transmission lines — the large structures you often see along highways or across open land. These transmission lines are not owned by a single utility. Instead, they are owned by many different generation and transmission utilities across the region; they are all interconnected to form a large, coordinated grid.
Because the transmission system is interconnected, power can move where it is needed most, helping maintain reliability during peak demand, outages, or extreme weather. Transmission owners work together, under regional rules and oversight, to keep electricity flowing safely and efficiently. While Todd-Wadena Electric Cooperative does not own or operate these high-voltage transmission lines, transmission costs and reliability directly affect the electricity delivered to our system and are included as part of the overall cost of service.
The final (and most local) step is distribution — and this is where Todd-Wadena’s role is most visible and most impactful. TWEC owns and maintains the distribution system that delivers electricity from our 15 substations to your homes, farms, and businesses. This includes poles, wires, transformers, meters, and service lines. We are responsible for maintaining this infrastructure, responding to outages, planning for growth, and ensuring safe, reliable service every day. This “last mile” of the electric system is where reliability becomes personal, and it is the part of the system TWEC controls directly.
Understanding how the entire power supply system works helps explain what TWEC can and cannot control. While we cannot directly control fuel prices, wholesale power costs, regional transmission expenses, or weather-driven demand, we are far from hands-off. TWEC works closely with both GRE and WAPA through ongoing coordination, forecasting, and long-term planning to help manage what we can. Locally, we make thoughtful infrastructure investments and operational decisions that support reliability, responsiveness, and cost stability for our members.
Daniel Carlisle
President/CEO & General Counsel
