General Info

South Central Public Power District is one of 31 rural electric utilities headquartered in Nebraska. As an electric utility, South Central PPD is relatively young. Many municipal utilities in Nebraska were organized in the 1880s and 1890s. Rural areas were much slower to develop as it was more expensive to extend electric service to all the farms in an area. The Rural Electrification Administration (REA), created in 1935, changed all that. REA made loans available for electric infrastructure in rural areas to bring electricity and jobs to rural America. While World War II halted the development of these rural electric systems, after the war there was rapid economic and electrical system growth. The states need for electricity doubled in just the six years from 1945 to 1951 and then doubled again and again.