SRP crews bring electricity to more Navajo Nation homes

PHOENIX - It may be hard to believe, but in 2026, there are hundreds of homes in the U.S. with no electricity, and many of them are on the Navajo Nation.

Big picture view:

Close to 10,000 homes in northern Arizona are without power, and more than 75% of the homes without power are on the Navajo Nation because of things like tradition, poverty, and distance, so SRP crews went to the native American nation to lighting up a handful of homes for the very first time.

"It’s been a long journey to get power, and where I reside, it’s out in nowhere," resident Anneretta Dove said.

Local perspective:

SRP has hooked up 128 homes since this humanitarian mission began in 2019, and they have now added a handful more.

Connecting homes to the power grid on the vast stretch of open land, however, is no walk in the park.

"Our economy here is slowly developing," Gaylda Tso of the Tuba City Tribal Utility Office said. "The town that I’m from, we only have one grocery store and two streetlights," 

Crews are installing eight transformers, putting up 153 power poles, and rolling out 84,000 feet of electrical line, just to reach nine new homes.

"Every time we come up, it’s two weeks at a time, so you’re leaving your family behind for two weeks, and kind of gotta look at the big picture and stories to tell your family when you get back of what you did, and kind of -- if you got kids of your own, to explain like ‘this is what we did, and it’s awesome,’" SRP lineman Spenser Petersen said.

Dove hopes to have her power on by this weekend, and for generations to come.

"It’s gonna be important. It’ll be a little bit easier on us. We can just turn on the switch, charge our devices, and then our upcoming generation will be easier for them," she said.

What's next:

SRP crews are due to come back to the Phoenix area after a two-week trip. They hope to go back to the Navajo Nation in the fall.