United Power members are uniquely given the opportunity to have a voice in the future of their electric utility. Each year, our members’ votes in the Director Election determine who will represent them on the co-op’s Board of Directors. As an electric cooperative, your participation in the annual election is critical to helping the co-op better serve its members. 

Every Vote Matters Equally

United Power is a not-for-profit cooperative owned and controlled by the members it serves. When you become a member, you automatically receive the benefits all other members share, including the right to vote for board representation. As a member, your vote is equal to any other member’s vote, regardless of the kind of account they have or how large it is. “One member, one vote” is part of the cooperative principle known as Democratic Member Control. Director candidates must also live or work within United Power’s service territory, so you know you will be voting for someone who understands your community’s needs. They could even be your friends or neighbors. 

Running for a Board Position

The primary difference between an investor-owned utility (IOU) and a cooperative is democratic control. IOUs make decisions to appease stakeholders and shareholders who might not live in the same state, let alone the same community. Any United Power member who meets the qualifications outlined in the bylaws is eligible to run for a position on the cooperative’s eleven-member Board of Directors. Directors serve four-year terms in one of four geographical districts. Members vote on an “at-large” basis, explained in more detail next.

Voting in the Election

Balloting opens March 14. United Power encourages all members to cast their votes in this year’s election. Members may vote electronically through their online account, or via mail ballots, sent to all members in mid-March. Directors represent all members and are therefore elected on an “at-large” basis. This means members may cast a vote for a director in each district and not just their own. Directors serve in geographic districts to ensure adequate accessibility for members and to provide a representative cross-section of United Power’s member base in the cooperative’s governing body.

Your vote always matters. To learn more about a director candidate, consider attending our Meet the Candidates event. Candidates will be announced in February, and candidate statements will be printed in the March newsletter and available online.

2025 Director Election

This year, three positions on the United Power Board are up for election at the 2025 Annual Meeting & Director Election, scheduled for April 16. Members may submit their votes electronically, via mail ballot, or in person at the Annual Meeting. 

More information about how members may vote in this year’s Director Election can be found here. 

Alice: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
Cheshire Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” 

This quote from Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is often paraphrased, “If you don’t know where you are going, then any road will get you there.” It speaks to the fact that a lack of direction can create challenges instead of opportunities and simply reinforces the status quo.

Having strategic direction, especially in times of significant societal and technological change, is critical. That is why the amazing team at United Power, supported by your Board of Directors, has unveiled the second version of Our Cooperative Roadmap (Roadmap). This document gives the co-op its direction and helps us screen activities in — as well as out.

The Roadmap v1.0 led us to where we are today. We have reduced our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by more than 26% since May 1 and successfully raised $700 million to evolve as an independent utility and meet the needs of our communities and more than 113,000 members. The Roadmap helped us obtain $261 million through the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) Program to support the transition to a cleaner energy supply and hyper-localize our resources. It clarified our technology investments, how we interact with members, and our role in supporting our communities.

Much has changed nearly three years after we unveiled the initial Roadmap. The western United States is edging closer to a power market and new power sources have come online. More members are adding solar panels and purchasing electric vehicles. But much has also remained the same, such as Colorado’s goal of 80% reduction in GHG emissions over 2005 levels by 2030 — a goal we will meet or exceed by helping members such as those in the oil and gas industry achieve their targets simply by electrifying the production facilities.

The Roadmap v2.0 maintains its focus on four critical areas that lie at the heart of what we do as a member-owned electric cooperative:

• Empower and Engage with Members and Communities. This critical element ties directly to United Power’s Community Benefit Plan through New ERA. Our dedicated focus on supporting communities and members made creating the benefit plan a simple task for our team.
• Provide Flexible, Affordable, Responsible Power and Services. United Power’s hyperlocalization strategy has resulted in significant deployment of battery energy storage systems, with more than 110 MWs spread across nine substations. It already proved valuable during last summer’s peak. This industry-leading deployment means we can benefit from times when power prices are low, using the stored energy when demand (and prices) are high.
• Continuously Optimize the Electric Distribution System. As we move toward becoming a distribution system operator (DSO), focusing on local generation and control, our system investments are made with your future needs in mind. We installed a new outage management system in 2024 that, coupled with our advanced metering infrastructure, gives us better real-time operational data.
• Achieve and Maintain Business Agility and Resilience. We will be replacing our distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) in 2025 to better manage system operations, and are rolling out a new asset management tool to improve our response times and better manage material and projects.

Underpinning Our Cooperative Roadmap are the amazing women and men of United Power and the foundational responsibilities they bring to running your cooperative every day.

Lewis Carroll’s words resonate for me when he said, “One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” It sure sounds so to me.

As always, feel free to reach out to me with your questions, comments, and concerns.