Rural Electrification

The village of Boaz was recently in the news for an Alliant Energy project establishing a microgrid to improve the reliability of power to this small community in the event of an outage or service interruption.

Boaz is known for its electrical history. After overcoming a mountain of obstacles, electric co-op lines were built and energized: the lights came on.

Rural electrification officially came to Wisconsin on May 7, 1937, when Richland Electric Cooperative went into service. The Hanold farm, located along Hwy. 14 approximately 1 mile east of Boaz, was the first farm to be hooked up to a rural electrical system that day. In Wisconsin, electric co-op leaders have achieved numerous “firsts,” including the creation of the nation’s first statewide association for Rural Electric Cooperatives (RECs), publishing the nation’s first statewide publication for REC members, creating one of the premier generation and transmission cooperatives in the country, founding an insurance company that now underwrites coverage for a majority of RECs in the U.S., organizing the first merchandising co-op to supply RECs in numerous states with line materials, and other innovations. (source: www.WECA.coop)