French Broad Electric Membership Corporation

French Broad Electric Membership Corporation. Our mission is to provide the highest quality of service to all of our members at a reasonable price. French Broad EMC is located in Western North Carolina and was formed in 1939. Since then, French Broad EMC has grown into a modern-day cooperative, with 19 substations, monitored via fiber optic cable, serving over 39,000 members in Madison County, Buncombe County, Yancey County and Mitchell County in North Carolina, as well as members in Unicoi County and Cocke County in Tennessee.

Renewable Resources and Your Cooperative

 For many years now, French Broad Electric has been taking advantage of the 'free fuel' the earth provides to assist in meeting our member's energy needs. Our long standing contractCapitola Hydro with the SouthEastern Power Administration (SEPA) has provided our members with low cost, reliable hydroelectric power. Our Cooperative owned and operated hydro facility on the French Broad river has been in operation since 1980 also supplying electricity to our customers to reduce our need for fossil fuel based generation. For the last three years, the Buncombe County landfill gas generator has been connected to our electric distribution system, adding millions of kilowatts to our system on an annual basis. Since 2007 when a North Carolina state law was passed that required utilities to have part of their generation sales derived from solar generation, over 100 member owned solar systems have been connected to our electrical grid. French Broad EMC will allow any residential or small commercial customer to connect their solar generation to the electrical grid with our generation rates. Buncombe Landfill