On September 19, 1904, the Village of Fennimore first turned on 21 electric arc street lights powered by its own 55 KW generator. This was the beginning of the Fennimore Electric Utility. The utility employed a superintendent and an assistant.
In 1913, in order to meet the needs of a growing community, the aging and outdated generator was retired and the Village decided to purchase wholesale power from Lancaster Electric Light Company, for distribution through the village system.
By 1919 the village had grown to a population of 1,386 and Fennimore was incorporated as a City. Electric rates for electricity were set at $0.12 per kWh for the first 10 kwh and then dropping to $0.10 for all over 10 kWh, with a minimum charge of $0.75.
Fennimore purchased its power from Interstate Power Company until Nov. 28, 1941. At that time the City started producing its own electricity as the new electric plant went online with power being supplied by three Buckeye diesel generators. The No. 1 unit was a 3-cylinder, 225 hp engine hat powered a 150 kW generator. The No. 2 and No. 3 units were each 4-cylinder, 300 hp engines powering 200 kW generators. This new power plant was constructed on city-owned property, which is its present location. By 1947 the demand for power had increased to where another unit was required. This new No. 4 unit, installed that year, was a 6-cylinder Buckeye engine with 600 hp and powering a 400 kW generator. The No.4 unit was shut down in 1953 with a broken shaft. During its 6 1/2 years of operation it ran a total of 32,558 hours and produced 6,447,600 kW of electricity.
The capacity of the plant, even before shutting down No. 4, was being overtaxed by the increasing demand from the city its rural customers. A new unit, identified as No. 5, was installed and went on line in May of 1952. It was a Fairbanks Morse engine with a maximum rating was 1050 hp, driving a 696 kW generator. Unit No. 4 was shut down in 1953.
Early in 1954 it was apparent that the municipal plant was running out of capacity again. A contract was negotiated with Grant Electric Cooperative to construct adequate transmission lines and install a new substation at the plant. Four large transformers became part of the substation. The City’s generators would produce electricity during peak demand hours with electricity being purchased during other hours. Three new transformers were moved in to increase capacity by 150%.
No. 4 was finally replaced in 1962 with a reconditioned Fairbanks Morse engine capable of 1180 hp and powering a 1136 kW generator.
In 1966 the City had net generation and purchases of electricity of 7 million kilowatt hours. This number jumped drastically in the early 1970’s, climbing from 9.77 million kWh in 1970 to 15.65 million in 1975. Of this only 416,100 came from the diesel plant.
In 1982, the three Buckeye engines were finally decommissioned and removed. By 1990, the City’s demand for electricity had grown to 25 million kWh and in 1998 was 32.3 million. At this time the City began investigating ways to reduce rates and decided to add three new generators. No. 6, No. 7 and No. 8 were installed in 1999 and were Caterpillar engines, each rated at 2,598 hp and 1,825 kW. These three Cat engines, along with the two Fairbanks Morse engines, are still housed in the diesel plant building located at 630 Lincoln Ave. and have been retired to emergency status only, since 2012.
In 2014, the City of Fennimore had 1,427 customers that used a total of 36,993,000 kWh of electricity. Today’s cost of electricity is $0.0816 per kWh. The Electric Utility has four full-time employees and maintains over 27 miles of transmission and distribution lines, along with the diesel plant and two substations. There are currently 257 street lights in the City.