What is Loup Power District?
Loup Power District is a full-service, public power electric
utility in eastern-central Nebraska. Loup's headquarters is
located in Columbus, Neb., a community of 21,000. Loup's service
area covers approximately 2,219 square miles. The District maintains
820 miles of transmission and distribution lines and has been
generating electric power since March 5, 1937. Total population
within Loup's service area numbers about 50,000. Loup had annual
revenues of more than $68 million in 2006.
Loup Power District's mission:
- One, To provide reliable electric services to our
customers at rates that are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory,
and to bring to our customers the rewards of an efficient
and prudent business operation.
- Two, To improve and promote the economic development
in our area.
Loup purchases, sells and delivers approximately 1.2
billion kilowatt hours of electric power annually to wholesale
and retail customers across a
service
area that spans the counties of Boone, Colfax,
Nance, and Platte; and part of
Madison county.
In conjunction with providing electric service to its
customers, Loup promotes the economic and industrial development
of its service area. These efforts have helped make Columbus
a bright spot on Nebraska's economic development horizon.
Columbus is known as the "City of Power and Progress"
and is the most industrialized community per capita in
the state.
- Three, To make maximum use of the water of the
Loup River to generate power.
Loup provides recreational
areas--two lakes, a bike trail, five parks and about
70 miles of canal right-of-way--to the public for boating,
water skiing, fishing, biking, hiking and camping--free
of charge.
Loup Power District is a political subdivision of the state
of Nebraska. It is governed by a 10-member, publicly elected
Board of Directors which meets monthly at the
District's General Office building in Columbus.
Loup Power District purchases its electric power requirements
at wholesale from Nebraska Public Power District. Nebraska
is the only state in the U.S. that is 100 percent public power
which provides local control and electric
rates that are 20
percent below the national average.
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How Did Loup Power District Begin?
Loup River Public Power District was formed by of a group of
Columbus businessmen who, during the Depression in the early
1930s, saw an opportunity to use federal funds to create jobs
for the area. Phil R. Hockenberger, Sr., Harold Kramer and C.
B. Fricke, revived a discarded plan conceived by Henry Ernest
Babcock to construct a 35-mile-long canal between Genoa and
Columbus.
The Loup Project, as it became known, was awarded $7.3 million
in grants and loans. The announcement of the project's approval
in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 15, 1933, set off impromptu celebrations
and torchlight parades in Columbus, Monroe and Genoa. More
than 1000 jobs were created by the Loup Project. The final
cost for digging the canal and building the two powerhouses
and reservoir lake was $8.9 million.
Loup River Public Power District was the first public power
utility in Nebraska. In its beginning, Loup was concerned
primarily with generating electric power. Loup, however, gradually
moved into the retail side of selling electric power across
the entire state. Loup opted for its present service area
during a realignment of Nebraska utilities in 1967.
In the 1990s, Loup River Public Power District unofficially
shortened its name to a more palatable Loup Power District.
The District celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2008. Loup
exceeded the one billion mark in annual kilowatt hour sales
in 1995. Loup Power District is governed by a 10-member Board
of Directors and has 112 full-time and 11 part-time employees,
including five management
members.
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