By Chief Executive Officer and General Manager Todd Brickhouse and Board President Wayne Peltier

Basin Electric Power Cooperative (Basin Electric) continues to adapt to challenges while ensuring reliability and affordability for its members. In 2024, growth continued across Basin Electric’s service territory, with the 2025-2034 Financial Forecast showing the cooperative’s projected load growth over the next 10 years expected to reach 3%—significantly higher than the national average of less than 1%.  To meet this demand, Basin Electric’s 2025-2034 Financial Forecast is showing significant infrastructure investments, nearly $8 billion in projected capital expenditures over the next decade, nearly doubling its balance sheet. This figure is anticipated to increase with future iterations of the financial forecasts.

Strategic investments in generation and transmission

With rapid growth, Basin Electric has taken proactive steps to expand its generation and transmission capacity. In 2024, the cooperative continued making significant investments through major capital projects and additional strategic investments across its system. These investments support long-term system resilience, enhance grid reliability, and accommodate increasing energy demand. Several notable projects and developments include:

• Dynamic Line Rating (DLR) Technology: Installed DLR technology to enhance grid reliability and optimize transmission capacity in northwestern North Dakota.
• Leland Olds Station Substation: A new 345-kilovolt (kV) substation, one of Basin Electric’s largest, is under construction near Stanton, North Dakota, with completion expected by summer 2025.
• Pioneer Generation Station Phase IV: Progressing toward an additional 580 MW of capacity by 2025 to support load growth and grid stability in the Bakken region.
• Roundup-to-Kummer Ridge Transmission Line: A 33-mile, 345-kV transmission line energized in December 2024, five months ahead of schedule, enhancing grid reliability and reducing congestion.
• Bison Generation Station: Basin Electric spent 2024 planning its next major baseload generation facility—Bison Generation Station—approved by the Board of Directors in January 2025. This $4 billion, 1,470-MW natural gas facility near Epping, North Dakota, will be Basin Electric’s largest solely owned power plant. It is expected to begin operations in 2030.

Carbon capture and environmental stewardship

Basin Electric continues to lead the nation in CO2 capture and storage. In February 2024, the Great Plains CO2 Sequestration Project went into service, with Dakota Gasification Company capturing and sequestering additional CO2 via permanent geologic storage reservoirs adjacent to the plant. The facility reached a milestone in August 2024 by sequestering over 1 million metric tons of CO2.

In November 2024, Basin Electric updated its Sustainability Report, showcasing the cooperative’s commitment to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy, environmental stewardship, and member focused governance.

Regulatory challenges and advocacy

Basin Electric remains committed to defending its all-of-the-above energy strategy, ensuring reliable, affordable power for members by prioritizing dispatchable resources like coal and natural gas, alongside wind and solar. The Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory overreach continued to threaten reliability, making it critical to advocate for policies that support dispatchable resources. In 2024, Basin Electric strengthened partnerships with NRECA, other G&Ts, and industry allies to challenge regulatory threats while continuing to serve reliable power to its members.

Looking ahead

Basin Electric remains focused on providing reliable, affordable, and sustainable power for its members. Through strategic investments, thoughtful decisions, and regulatory advocacy, the cooperative will continue to adapt, innovate, and invest to ensure long-term success.

Mission: We are a safe, environmentally responsible cooperative that provides reliable, affordable power, products, and services to sustain the quality of life for our member-owners across rural America.

Editor’s note: Basin Electric Power Cooperative supplies much of the power distributed to Slope Electric Cooperative members throughout the tri-county area. We asked Todd Brickhouse and Wayne Peltier to update our members on what is happening at Basin Electric.