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Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative - Powering the future - CoBank Site
Powering the future
Founded in 1949, Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative is guided by its traditional core values—but still has an eye to the future. And after 75 years of delivering safe, reliable and affordable electricity to its member-owners, NIPCO underwent major infrastructure upgrades to better serve its growing and evolving community.
NIPCO is a generation and transmission electric cooperative established with one goal in mind: to connect farms and rural communities through electricity. Today, it serves 30,000 members, supplying power to seven distribution co-ops across 6,500 square miles in Western Iowa. But as the energy landscape changes, and the population throughout its service territory steadily grows, NIPCO needed to renew and replace many of its original power lines and transmission poles.
They know us. They know our industry—and that’s what makes it so seamless.
“Most of our infrastructure was installed early in our formation in the 1950s and ’60s, and it was pivotal that we complete these upgrades to bring everything up to the new industry standard,” said Jane Scheitler, CFO of NIPCO. “That’s when we turned to CoBank for support. They have been our financial partner for nearly 20 years, and we trusted them to get the job done quickly and efficiently.”
CoBank provided a $35 million work plan loan for NIPCO, allowing the co-op to refinance existing short-term debt to support its growing transmission system. Upon completion of the project, NIPCO will also use the bank’s long-term loan financing options to repay the credit over the asset’s lifespan.
“The support from CoBank has been instrumental for this comprehensive, yet essential plan. By leveraging both short and long-term financing options, we can manage our capital projects more efficiently—and that gives us the peace of mind needed to implement such a large upgrade,” Scheitler said.
In addition to its infrastructure upgrade, NIPCO recently completed a new outpost building, which serves as base station for its line crews. The new building is a significant upgrade from the co-op’s previous housing options—offering improved equipment storage and enhanced access to materials, ensuring its crew can serve members even more reliably.
NIPCO’s mission has never wavered—to improve the life and enhance growth within the communities it serves. Whether it’s through longstanding partnerships, or forward-thinking plans, it strives to be a vital part of Western Iowa for generations to come.
“The value of community is that we are stronger together, much like the cooperative business model. And we couldn’t have completed this plan or other one-off projects without our partners like CoBank. They know us. They know our industry—and that’s what makes it so seamless, ensuring the future is bright for our members and rural communities,” Scheitler said.
