ARIZONA NEWS
SRP helps bring electricity to 10 isolated homes on Navajo Nation
May 4, 2023, 8:00 PM
PHOENIX — Ten isolated homes located on Navajo Nation now have electricity after Salt River Project crews helped install power lines as part of the Light Up Navajo project, the utility company announced.
Line workers from more than two dozen utilities in 15 states, including 14 SRP employees, worked for three weeks to install nearly 6 miles of power lines, according to a press release. The crews set 104 poles and strung more than 63,000 feet of wire.
The Light Up Navajo project’s 2023 operations will continue through the end of June, with the goal of powering over 200 homes.
“Last year, we energized a couple of homes in one day. This time, we actually spent two to three days building longer lines — digging holes, setting poles, pulling wire and hanging transformers, all to energize one single customer,” Dean Frescholtz, lines supervisor, said in the release.
“It was amazing how long you’d have to build the line to pick up that one single customer and then standing at that homestead, not even seeing the next home in need.”
SRP’s participation includes donated employee time, line trucks and digging equipment.
Of the 55,000 homes located within Navajo Nation, about 13,500 homes do not have electricity, according to the American Public Power Association. Those homes make up 75% of all U.S. households that do not have power.
Light Up Navajo, a partnership between the America Public Power Association and Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, launched as a pilot program in 2019 to give power to homes without electricity.
