Heck no.
If you knew what it cost to build a substation you would not find that surprising.
For what it cost to build some substations they could buy most ranches.
If they built a multi-million dollar substation there what would they get one customer that would buy a couple of thousand dollars of electricity a year?
I do know what it costs to build a substation. I’m the retired EE, remember? Back then, it probably would have cost about $15 mil. I know, ‘cuz I asked the power company.
And yes, they could have bought the ranch - for about $1.4 mil. I know, because I asked the owner how much the place was selling for - he was fed up with the destruction of his hay fields.
But no, the power/transmission companies have their lawyers work up studies so that the owner of a pristine piece of property gets jack in the way of compensation. They wouldn’t buy the ranch, they wouldn’t compensate him fairly (because they like to use urban-based property valuations, they stack the deck against rural property owners) and they wouldn’t deliver electricity.
Oh, and the power on the transmission line is to wheel power from rural generation points fired by coal to urban areas where the urban intellectuals and environmentalists don’t want coal-fired plants in their back yards. So they’ll allow the power plants to site the power plant and the transmission lines in rural folks’ backyards.
Little wonder that when urban-area power utility trucks get stuck out here, folks pass ‘em by without even waving.