The Corn Belt Power Cooperative, incorporated on August 28, 1947, is a generation and transmission (G&T) electric cooperative in northern Iowa that serves the needs of farmers, rural residents, small towns, businesses and industries. The Cooperative began operating in Humboldt, Iowa on April 1, 1948 with five employees and nine diesel plants which had been turned over to the Cooperative by its parent companies, Central Electric Federated Cooperative Association and Federated Cooperative Power Association. Preparations to build a steam plant in Humboldt, Iowa began in 1948, and the plant's first generating unit began initial operations on March 28, 1950.



Plans for its parent cooperatives took place at a meeting of representatives from nine Iowa rural electric cooperatives on February 10, 1937 in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Their goal was to avoid the high rates private power companies were insisting the power cooperatives pay. The Reeve Plant of the Federated Cooperative Power Association was the first generation plant to be financed by the Rural Electric Administration.



The Corn Belt Power Cooperative now supplies electricity to 12 member cooperatives in 28 counties in northern Iowa. In addition to a wholly owned coal-fired plant and a gas combustion turbine generator, the Cooperative also holds partial ownership of Iowa's only nuclear power plant, the Duane Arnold Energy Center, located near Palo, Iowa. The Cooperative also has access to renewable energy sources such as wind and hydroelectric power.