Electricity is a unique product in that it can't be stored. It must always be on the move until it's used, and it has to be delivered in just the right amount needed by the consumer. A wholesale supplier generates the electricity, and uses transmission lines to provide it to the utility distribution provider that purchased it.
Electricity can be generated from coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, water and biomass.
Prairie Land Electric gets electricity from a Generation and Transmission cooperative called Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, based in Hays, Kansas. Sunflower Electric owns and operates generation and transmission assets that crisscross 36 central and western Kansas counties. Sunflower was created in 1957 by six rural electric cooperatives in western Kansas, including Prairie Land Electric, because they needed assurance they would have a reliable long-term power supply available to them at a price lower than what each individual cooperative could obtain independently. For more information on the sources of the power generated by Sunflower Electric, click here.
Prairie Land Electric is a distribution cooperative and the direct point of contact with the electricity consumers. Distribution cooperatives purchase power at wholesale from a G&T and deliver it to members by reducing the voltage and transferring it to smaller distribution lines that allow it to travel safely to the consumer.