Light Up Navajo
Bret Marchese is Director of Distribution Line Construction and Maintenance at Salt River Project.
The Navajo Nation is a vast and remote region that spans twenty-seven thousand square miles across Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah; roughly the size of West Virginia. Despite its size, electricity remains out of reach for many families.
Of the fifty-five thousand homes scattered across the Nation, an estimated ten thousand two hundred seven still lack power, representing about seventy-five percent of all unelectrified households in the United States today.
To address this gap, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA), in partnership with the American Public Power Association, launched the Light Up Navajo project, an initiative that demonstrates how collaboration among utilities can transform lives.
How the Partnership Began
When NTUA approached Salt River Project (SRP) in 2019 to share the challenges they faced, including the fact that bringing electricity to all homes in the Navajo Nation could take more than fifty years to complete, SRP responded immediately, recognizing that its technical expertise and infrastructure capabilities could make a meaningful impact.
That same year, SRP joined the initiative during its pilot phase, sending two line crews and specialized equipment for six weeks to help build power lines in some of the most isolated and hard-to-reach areas of the Southwest. Since then, SRP has remained a committed partner, returning year after year to support the mission.