Retired Duke CEO looks to a cooperative business structure for ‘lighting the world’

Although he ran the largest investor-owned utility in the U.S, Jim Rogers, former CEO of Duke Energy, is turning to the cooperative concept as he takes around the globe a mission of bringing electricity to people without it.

“It’s emerging as my dominant mission,” said Rogers in an interview with the Charlotte Observer. And the way he imagines global electricity evolving is to facilitate the partnership between governments and private companies, allowing them to raise capital to build microgrids alongside existing utilities. Getting people involved in bringing electricity to their areas, he suggests, will mean they value it even more.

Rogers envisions coupling solar power with battery storage to create “microgrids” in areas without electricity. Microgrids can sync with existing infrastructure but can operate independently if needed. The set up would allow people to power lamps, irrigation pumps, water purifiers and cell phones, improving their lives much like electric cooperatives did 80 years ago in rural America. He has written about his ideas in a new book, “Lighting the World.”