Fewer than 7 percent of Minnesota farms had electric service. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) and signed the Rural Electrification Act to bring power to rural America.

Even with the help of long-term, low-interest REA loans, bringing power to rural Minnesota was no small feat. The colossal efforts of electric cooperative pioneers faced high wholesale power costs, thinly settled areas, low farm incomes, and natural barriers of the varied Minnesota geography.  These Minnesotan farmers worked to build electric lines to rural Minnesota not because they wanted to get into the utility business, but because they could improve life for their communities. Thanks to the work of rural electric cooperatives, electricity transformed agriculture and life in rural America into productivity and prosperity.

Minnesota Rural Electric Association was formed to represent Minnesota’s electric cooperatives. Our mission sought to “promote and provide a medium for unity of efforts and exchanges of ideas among cooperative associations engaged in the distributions of electricity” — something we still do today.

Close to 80 percent of U.S. farms had electric service thanks to REA loans and the cooperative business model. Since then, generations have heard the stories about “the night the lights came on,” a significant date for farm families.

Minnesota’s electric cooperatives provide reliable, affordable electric service for 1.7 million Minnesotans across 85 percent of Minnesota’s landmass.

From moving to a more sustainable grid to promoting charging programs for electric vehicles, Minnesota’s not-for-profit electric co-ops are innovative industry leaders. Self dependence, cost consciousness, and member-focused culture drives co-op innovation.