After nearly going bankrupt during Winter Storm Uri, Rayburn Electric Cooperative fundamentally reworked its approach to reliability by acquiring and building its own dispatchable power generation rather than relying primarily on markets.

The experience reshaped how the co-op thinks about risk, workforce investment, and extreme events, pushing leadership to plan for worst-case scenarios and take a more proactive, all-of-the-above approach to keeping the lights on for rural Texans.