Light Up Navajo – Mutual Aid Without a Storm

The Navajo people often live on large parcels of land, creating significant distances between neighboring homes, producing the lowest number of utility customers per mile in the U.S. and a high cost of providing service.

As a result, it is often cost-prohibitive to provide utility services to individual homes on much of the Navajo Nation, which spans across northern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah, which is an area larger than the state of West Virginia.

This region contains more than 75% of Americans without access to electricity.

Over the past seventeen (17) years, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) has electrified over 8,178 homes. However, there remain more than 10,000 homes within the Navajo Nation without electricity.

In 2018, NTUA initiated the Light Up Navajo initiative to advance the electrification of homes within the Navajo Nation, in coordination with the American Public Power Association (APPA) and its members. This unique initiative utilizes Mutual Aid concepts to the Navajo Nation to extend electricity Navajo homes within an expedited timeframe

Since then, the utility interest has expanded among utility industry. Rural cooperatives, Investor owned, and technical-trade schools have united to join the electrification efforts. In 2025, there were 45 participating utilities from 20 different states. 23 were Public Power, 17 Rural Cooperatives, 4 Investor-Owned, 1 Tech College, and 1 non-profit union organization – Electric Workers Without Borders North America (EWWBNA), a not-profit organization supported by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

This year, close to 300 electric line workers and electricians traveled to the Navajo Nation to help connect the homes of Navajo families. In 14 weeks, over 197 homes were connected, marking another successful season of Light Up Navajo.