California's Capital Region: The Sacramento Valley

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SMUD
Top: SMUD line crews display utility equipment used in 1956 and in 2006.
Bottom: Windmills at Solano Wind Farm provide the cleanest electricity of
all of SMUD’s renewable energy sources.
Electricity came to Sacramento in 1879 before Sacramento
Municipal Utility District (SMUD) was a regionally known
name. More than half a century later in 1946, SMUD began
serving Sacramento and is now the nation’s sixth-largest community-owned,
not-for-profit electric utility.
With about 2,200 employees, SMUD serves about 626,000
business and residential customers and a population of 1.5
million. SMUD is one of the Capital Region’s largest employers.
SMUD’s service territory covers 900 square miles and the utility
is governed by an elected seven-member Board of Directors
that determines policy and appoints the CEO and General
Manager, who is responsible for SMUD’s daily operations.
The company’s history began in 1923 when local voters
approved the creation of Sacramento Municipal Utility
District–now known as SMUD–and elected the first fivemember
Board of Directors. Between 1923 and taking over
as Sacramento’s primary electricity provider in 1946, SMUD
spent many years negotiating with existing suppliers of light
and power over poles and lines to establish its own electric
distribution system.
In April of 1946 the sales contract from PG&E was finally
signed and SMUD built and organized a company of over
400 linemen, engineers, electricians, managers and office
workers to take over electric system operations. SMUD pioneers’
hard work paid off and eight months later at 6 p.m. on
December 31, 1946—with no dimming of the lights—
SMUD started supplying power to Sacramento.
In the 1950s, Sacramento’s fledgling community-owned electric
company began to soar, and SMUD employees steadily built
a flexible, well-integrated system. As SMUD's customer population
surged in the 1950s and 1960s, it kept pace by starting construction
on a series of dams and hydroelectric powerhouses on
the upper America River, which was complete by 1971. At the
same time, SMUD’s load capacity increased by expanding its distribution
system of poles and wires, where ninety-five percent of
the system had been rebuilt or newly constructed.
In the last decade, SMUD has increased its renewable energy
supply from just four percent to more than twenty-five
CALIFORNIA’S CAPITAL REGION - THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY
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