In 1935 President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act that made it possible for many rural people to organize electric cooperatives. The REA, as it was called, gave electric co-ops access to low interest loans for the purpose of constructing transmission and distribution systems in order to provide central station power to rural America. Many of the country’s People’s Utility Districts [PUD] also had access to REA funds.
At the time the REA Act was signed, there were very few rural people fortunate enough to enjoy the luxury of electricity that their city cousins had. Even if you happened to live next to the road right of way where an investor-owned utility [IOU] had a power line, the costs to connect in most cases were prohibitive, and you certainly could not afford to have the line built over a great distance. Evidence of this is still apparent today as you drive down Highway 97 in Sherman County.
Today, electric co-ops nationwide serve 13.5% of the population and account for 13% of the energy sold. Although they own and maintain nearly half of the distribution lines in the U.S., spanning 3-quarters of the land mass, they average only 7.98 consumers per mile and collect revenues of approximately $19,000 per mile.
IOU’s and public utilities, or municipals, average 32.4 customers per mile and collect $79,000 per mile of line. As a comparison, Wasco Electric Cooperative has a density of 2.8 consumers per mile and collects a revenue of approximately $6,050 per mile.