Capital Credits

Co-op Members Get Refunds!

Yes, members of Sussex REC get refunds! These refunds are called capital credits. The capital credit refund program is in keeping with the nonprofit nature of a rural electric cooperative. The Internal Revenue Service's regulations require co-ops to credit each consumer-member's account with any revenue received above and beyond operating expenses. The credits are assigned in proportion to the amount of electricity purchased in each year.

The credits represent a consumer-member's equity (ownership) in the Co-op. It is used as working capital to maintain the system until the Board of Directors authorizes a refund. Refunds can only be made when they will not impair the operations of the cooperative.

The size of the refund that a consumer-member may receive, depends on several things. First the Co-op has to make a margin. That means that the co-op has taken in more money than it needs to operate. Next, the Board of Directors has to decide that the Co-op is secure enough to refund a portion of a given year's margins.

Your refund is determined by your patronage, or the amount of money that you spent purchasing electricity in the year that we are retiring. What we do is take the total profit made and divide that by the total patronage of all our members. This result is the percentage rate that we use to determine what your capital credit should be. We multiply the percentage rate by your patronage for the year that we are retiring. If we are retiring the entire year, you would get the entire amount. If we are retiring only part of a year, you would get only that part.

All members receive a notice of their capital credit allocation. In recent years, we have found it more cost effective to apply capital credits to active member's accounts rather than mailing out individual checks. People who have moved from our system still receive checks and must sign and return the form which is mailed to them.

Therefore, it is important when you move from Sussex REC's service territory to leave a forwarding address. To notify us of a change of address, please complete the form below.

Click on the link below to e-mail us your change of address. Please be sure to include your old "Sussex Rural" address and your old account number (if available).

Capital Credit Name & Address Change: