By Don Douglas
Practically, this has meant that while nearly every other utility in Vermont is enacting or proposing rate increases, WEC is not.
Washington Electric Cooperative had a very positive 2025! We recognized margins in the amount of $2,513,429, an increase of $1,644,962 from the previous year. Members, that is your money. Not-for-profits don’t have profits that go to shareholders, but when our income is more than our spending, we have margins. Because WEC is a cooperative, those margins belong to members. If you paid your electric bill in 2025, you’ll get money back, proportionate to what you paid, when WEC retires 2025 capital credits. It can take several years, because we need to maintain enough in the bank to stay financially stable and satisfy our lenders. But in time you’ll get a credit on your November bill, or if you move off of WEC lines, a check in the mail.
Here are the factors that led to 2025’s margins:
- Revenues from electric sales were roughly $779,000 more than last year. This is partly due to snowier and colder temperatures during the first quarter of the year resulted in lower solar generation and a higher usage of electricity given the cold.
- Sales of renewable energy credits (RECs) were $2,407,625, which were up from the previous year by $527,625.
- The Coventry Landfill Gas to Energy (LFG) facility generation was 16% higher than the previous year, and at a level we had not seen since 2020, which not only provided us with more power, but allowed us to sell additional RECs at the end of the year.
- We were also very fortunate to avoid the extreme weather events we have seen in each of the past several years, which as members know caused significant power outages as well damage to our system in amounts close to $1,000,000 annually.
The increases in revenues, coupled with lower operating costs, allowed us to request an accounting order from the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to defer $1,200,000 of excess revenue from 2025 into 2026. Practically, this has meant that while nearly every other utility in Vermont is enacting or proposing rate increases, WEC is not. We can defer such an increase to 2027 or even beyond.
This also provides us with some financial security for any unforeseen expenses in 2026, such as significant storm damage. Typically, WEC has benefited from FEMA reimbursements during significant weather events, like the storms we experienced during December 2022 and the flooding events in July 2023 and July 2024. But we have seen FEMA reimbursements denied for towns in Vermont impacted by flooding in the summer of 2025, even though the damages met the criteria that in earlier years would designate the event as a federal disaster. Although WEC was fortunate enough to avoid any major damage from this storm, it obviously causes us concern about the future of these disaster reimbursements.
In 2024, WEC decided to pursue selling the Wrightsville hydro plant. However, this prospective sale was blocked by state regulators in 2025, so WEC will likely continue to own and operate the plant for the foreseeable future.
Capital credits are a unique feature of electric cooperatives. Investor-owned utilities (IOUs) take the money brought in above operating costs as profits, which are returned to stockholders who invest in the company. In the case of the large IOU in Vermont, Green Mountain Power, profits flow mostly out of Vermont. Cooperatives like WEC, however, are owned by their members, and members benefit when we have a year like 2025. It is true that it may be many years between when that excess revenue comes in and when it is returned, as is the case for most electrical cooperatives, but that money stays in Vermont and within our membership. The Board of Directors decides each year how much to retire from the money held in capital credits. In 2024, WEC retired all the capital credits from 2000, for a total of $650,000. Since 1998, WEC has returned almost $11 million to members.
We invite our members to donate their capital credits back to the WEC Community Fund, which provides grants to many non-profit organizations serving people in some or all of the four counties served by the cooperative. The Community Fund is not funded through rates: it’s funded only through member donations. More than 10% of our members donate back their capital credits. This is a great way to make a real difference in your community. For more information, please call the WEC office at 802-223-5245 or visit washingtonelectric.coop/capital-credits.
On behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to thank the entire Finance Department for their hard work and dedication to Washington Electric Cooperative.