Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative

Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative (NIPCO) is a generation and transmission electric cooperative supplying wholesale electric power to 7 distribution cooperatives covering 6,500 square miles in western Iowa.  These distribution cooperatives supply retail power to over 30,000 members/consumers. NIPCO serves these customers with over 900 miles of 69kV transmission line and 80 distribution substations.  Incorporated in 1949 and headquartered in Le Mars, Iowa, NIPCO is a Touchstone Energy® electric cooperative and a member of Basin Electric Power Cooperative. 

NIPCO Facts

Year Organized: 1949

Power Suppliers: Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Western Area Power Administration

Territory:  6,500 square miles including Iowa counties of Cherokee, Crawford, Harrison, Ida, Monona, O'Brien, Plymouth, Shelby, Sioux, Woodbury and portions of Clay, Pottawattamie, Audubon, Carroll and Buena Vista

Work Force: 44 full-time employees, including two employees at outposts in Harlan and Onawa

Transmission System: 909 miles of high-voltage transmission line, two source supply stations, 78 distribution substations, 382 miles of overhead fiber optic cable and 72 miles of underground fiber optic cable

Class A Maximum Demand: 257 MW (01/14)

NIPCO and its member cooperatives serve the electric needs of homes, farms, communities, business and industry in all or parts of 12 counties of western Iowa.

A generation and transmission cooperative, NIPCO purchases power from Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Western Area Power Administration and delivers that power to substations throughout its service area.

From those points, NIPCO's member cooperatives and municipal electrics deliver the power to the end user.

Power Suppliers

About 20 percent of NIPCO’s power comes from the dams along the Missouri River. The remainder of the power is produced by clean, low-cost thermal generation augmented by a growing portion of wind generation. Basin Electric Power Cooperative, headquartered in Bismarck, N.D., provides that power.

When rural electric cooperatives first were established beginning in the mid-1930s, each cooperative purchased its power locally. But as electric needs grew, cooperatives banded together to find other sources of power. So it was in western Iowa. Thirteen electric cooperatives formed Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative in 1949 to construct and maintain a power delivery system to purchase and deliver all future power supply needs for its members. NIPCO is headquartered in Le Mars, Iowa.

Originally, the Missouri River dams supplied all power needs for NIPCO members. Power was purchased through Western Area Power Administration. Load growth studies in the 1960s showed a need for an additional power source. Cooperative leaders from eight states worked together to form Basin Electric Power Cooperative which now owns and operates generating stations that supply the electric needs of cooperatives throughout the Midwest. Basin Electric’s generating stations operate with sophisticated technology to protect air quality. Coal fields supplying the generating stations are returned to productive farm land. Basin Electric has received national recognition for efficiency and low-cost power production.

Today, NIPCO purchases low-cost power on behalf of its members and transmits the power to substations where distribution electric cooperatives take that final step of delivering reliable, safe power to their members.