My last two energy providers have been coops. In north eastern California, the coop had one feed from PG&E and the other from a company out of Reno (I forget the name). It ended up being cheaper and more stable than PG&E itself.
You really don’t get to choose where your power comes from though and pge owns the lines. Paying another org is just throwing money away.
I will disagree - the coop was actually cheaper than the town near by that was PG&E direct. Also the stability was significantly better than PG&E alone - after the Camp Fire - PGE got extremely paranoid and had frequent shutoffs in the area. The Coop flipped to the backup provider. I think in nearly 9 years of living there, the number of power outages were under 20, the number of extended ones were like 3.
The infrastructure and lines are generally shared, yes.
PGE != PG&E btw. The first is Portland General Electric. The second is Pacific Gas and Electricity.
Yeah u was lazy when typing this morning and should have been more complete.