Sioux Valley Energy is one of many electric utilities throughout the nation that are facing increasing rate pressures this year and likely into future years.
Four Key Drivers of Basin Electric’s Rate Increase
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Tim McCarthy
Sioux Valley Energy
General Manager/
Chief Executive Officer
When you peel away all the complexities and unique situations present with each electric utility, you will get to the core of the issue, and that stems from skyrocketing electrical demand from consumers. Many (if not most) electric utilities do not have the needed generation and transmission to support that demand for a variety of reasons. One of the causes is that traditional baseload generation (think coal plants) have been shut down in different parts of the country with no corresponding replacement. Of course, that is a vast simplification of the issue but hits at the core because generation and transmission must be built to support the demand and that comes at a cost.
We are anticipating a fairly significant cost increase from our wholesale power supplier, Basin Electric Power Cooperative. There are four basic drivers of that increase:
This is a lot to digest, but as I mentioned, our goal is to provide you with as much up-to-date information about the 2026 rate increase as we can. Basin Electric’s Board of Directors will meet in September to set rates, which will provide us with the details we need to set our budget here at the local level, and give you a better idea of what next year’s rates will look like.