Empowering Rural Communities

Community Benefits Plan

Wolverine is developing a community benefits plan that will include programs to benefit the homes and businesses served by our member electric cooperatives. Our efforts will be focused on areas that provide meaningful and lasting benefits across our service territory of over 40 counties.

Background

At Wolverine, supporting and empowering the communities we serve is one of our five core power supply pillars. This commitment is evident in our historic initiative to purchase carbon-free power from the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant upon its successful reopening, ensuring reliable and affordable energy for our members.

As part of this effort, Wolverine was awarded a grant from the New ERA program. A key component of this grant is the development of a Community Benefits Plan (CBP), a task that aligns perfectly with our cooperative’s values. This plan will ensure that the investment in Palisades not only meets our energy goals but also delivers tangible benefits to our members and local communities.

Draft Concepts

The concepts outlined below are designed to have a meaningful impact on Wolverine’s rural communities for decades to come.

Low Income Community Solar

 

Investments in the American Workforce - Skilled Trades Training and Apprenticeship

 

Energy Efficiency

 

About Wolverine

Wolverine Power Cooperative is a not-for-profit generation and transmission cooperative dedicated to providing reliable, affordable electricity to its members in Michigan. Founded on cooperative principles, Wolverine is distinct from investor-owned utilities because it is owned and governed by its members, not stockholders. This member-centric approach ensures that the needs and interests of the communities we serve are always our top priority.

Wolverine is owned by seven-member cooperatives, soon to be eight, which together serve nearly 300,000 member-consumers across Michigan. This unique structure fosters a close-knit, community-focused operation where decisions are made with the direct input and benefit of those we serve.

Share Your Input

As we develop the plan, we invite the community to participate in the process. If you’ve got a question or comment, submit it below. We’d love to hear from you.

Wolverine held an event to provide background information on the Community Benefits opportunity and answer questions from the community. If you’re interested in learning more, take a look.

Meeting Resources

Slide Presentation

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Survey Results

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Frequently Asked Questions

The Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program helps rural Americans transition to clean, affordable, and reliable energy. By reducing air and water pollution, New ERA funding improves health outcomes and lowers energy costs for people in rural communities. New ERA program funding is available to member-owned rural electric cooperatives, which have been the backbone of America’s rural power delivery for nearly a century.

Wolverine was awarded New ERA funding because of its commitment to purchase 435 megawatts of clean, carbon-free wholesale energy from the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant (Palisades) to serve its member cooperatives throughout rural Michigan. This historic and significant commitment to purchase Palisades power puts Wolverine’s rural distribution cooperative members to be 100% carbon-free by 2030.

As a key condition of the New ERA award, Wolverine must develop a CBP to enhance the benefits of the New ERA award in local communities. Wolverine is engaged with key stakeholders to ensure that it implements a meaningful and impactful CBP to benefit the rural communities cooperatives serve.

Wolverine’s purchase of Palisades power combined with the New ERA grant will support reliable, clean, and affordable energy for decades to come. Wolverine’s CBP will further enhance the benefits to cooperatives member-consumers.

Our efforts will be focused on areas that provide meaningful and lasting benefits across our service territory of over 40 counties. The focus of the CBP will be to improve the lives of low-income members, disadvantaged rural communities, and increase economic opportunity throughout rural Michigan.

In keeping with the priorities of the New ERA program, our CBP will be designed to have a positive impact on energy efficiency, low-income families and individuals, and energy workforce training.

Receiving the New ERA award is based on the successful restart of Palisades. Currently, Palisades is expected to restart in the Fall of 2025. The first commitments under the CBP, are anticipated to begin shortly after the New ERA award as soon as early 2026.

CBP will be offered long-term, finalizing the term will occur later, once New ERA funding has been awarded and reimbursements schedules are determined.

Wolverine anticipates that member-consumers and impacted stakeholders will be eligible to participate in the CBP. The methods for qualifying and applying for support resources will be determined in collaboration with our cooperative members and stakeholders.

Wolverine was selected to receive a New ERA award of $650 million to support long-term affordability, reliability, and clean energy. Once finalized the impacts this New ERA award combined with CBP will make a meaningful difference to our nearly 300,000 rural cooperative members for decades to come.