Le Mars, Iowa — Three rural Iowa electrical coops are getting a combined 20 million dollars in federal loan money. And one of them serves our area.
Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative (NIPCO) received a $3.5 million loan to help with generation system improvements. Northwest Iowa Power Co-op is a generation and transmission electric cooperative headquartered in Le Mars, in Plymouth County, supplying wholesale electric power to seven distribution cooperatives covering 6,500 square miles in western Iowa. These distribution cooperatives supply retail power to over 30,000 members/consumers. The cooperative serves these customers with over 900 miles of 69k V transmission line and 80 distribution substations.
One of the seven distribution cooperatives that NIPCO serves is Northwest REC. And two of the counties Northwest REC serves are two of the counties in our listening area — Sioux County and O’Brien County.
The other two coops receiving federal loan money are Western Iowa Power Coop in Denison and Prairie Energy Cooperative in Clarion, northeast of Fort Dodge.
