by Kory Hammerbeck, Rushmore Electric Power Cooperative CEO/GM

On New Year’s Day 2021, had you asked me the odds of a winter blackout rolling through these parts, I would have told you a million to one. A longshot. Don’t worry about it. Then February 16 happened. A polar vortex took a nasty turn, causing rolling blackouts for over 5,500 rural South Dakotans west of the Missouri. Now, on the 3-year anniversary of that storm (Uri), it looks like the odds of a repeat are increasing.

It’s not because your local co-op has neglected grid maintenance. Quite the opposite: Over the past 3 years, Butte Electric Cooperative (BEC) invested nearly $2 million in system hardening (upgrading poles, wires, transformers, substations, vegetation clearing, etc.). In 2022, BEC’s average outage time per consumer was 1.4 hours. 2023 numbers, soon to be verified, look similar. For perspective, the national average outage time per consumer is 5 hours a year. BEC, at 99.98% reliability, easily beats that – a remarkable feat considering the extreme cold, snow and ice storms, hail and high winds that distinguish our climate. I tip my hat to the line crews. Their craft is one of the most dangerous in the country. Often, they maintain energized power lines so your heat and light are not interrupted. So your Wi-Fi router doesn’t reboot. So your microwave clock doesn’t blink. So you don’t experience any inconvenience at all.

To grasp what happened during Uri, you must first understand the grid’s complexity. In southern states, natural gas lines feeding power plants froze. Iced-up regional wind turbines went offline. To counterbalance the shortfall, so a larger geographic area didn’t blackout, the Southwest Power Pool (SPP, our region’s transmission operator) directed electric suppliers to reduce the amount of power they delivered to the grid. This marked the first time in SPP’s 83-year history that it initiated such a call. The result: outages from the Midwest to Mexico. But the grid did not crash. 

Since that storm, our region’s reliability has not been severely tested.

Here at Rapid City-based Rushmore Electric Power Cooperative, we sell the electricity delivered to your co-op. We purchase it from two places: (1) Generating stations (primarily fueled by coal, natural gas and wind) owned by Bismarck, ND-based Basin Electric Power Cooperative (BEPC); and (2) hydroelectric power from the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA, a federally managed agency). Both have a half-a-century-plus track record of reliability. Drought conditions can reduce the amount of WAPA’s hydropower, but it’s dependable. BEPC employs an all-of-the-above generation strategy, using coal, natural gas, wind, hydro, oil and solar to generate power. And recently, to bolster regional reliability, it committed more than $1 billion for new transmission and generation.

Even so, what happens in 14 states impacts our reliability. That’s 756 generating plants, 61,000 miles of transmission and 4,800 substations delivering power to 18 million people across 546,000 square miles. Have utility post-Uri upgrades made our region’s network bulletproof? Perhaps only another prolonged Arctic blast will tell.

At the federal level, reliability concerns now grow. In December, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), our nation’s grid monitoring watchdog, warned that over the next decade, our region is at elevated risk: likely to experience an increased number of shortages when extreme and prolonged weather conditions strike. NERC attributes this to:

• Electric generating plants not designed or prepared for extreme cold or heat
• Fuel production and transportation disruptions limiting fuel availability
• Weather-dependent renewable generation
• Increased electric demand

In its recent 2023 Long-Term Reliability Assessment, NERC acknowledges that electric use in North America is increasing more rapidly than at any time in the past three decades. This certainly factors into future reliability concerns.

I can add some color to this.

It’s not just electric vehicles, heat pumps and air conditioners. It’s crypto mining and large data processing centers. It’s siting and permitting delays for needed transmission lines. It’s sensitive wind and solar inverters tripping unexpectedly. It’s heightening concerns that existing generation is at risk of retirement before reliable alternatives are in place. And that proposed Clean Air Act Section 111(d) EPA regulations addressing carbon emissions will accelerate fossil-fuel generator retirements. As you can see, it's intricate.

Rest assured, reliability tops our region’s present and future priority list.

WHAT YOUR CO-OP IS DOING TO ADDRESS FUTURE RELIABILITY

Locally

We regularly conduct face-to-face meetings with local, state and federal delegates. We educate and inform them about this issue, stressing the need for legislative support. 

In South Dakota

Through the South Dakota Rural Electric Association (our state’s lobbying organization), we advocate initiatives in Pierre that promote reliable, affordable electric service. 

At the regional level

Representing co-ops in western South Dakota, Murdo’s Mike McQuistion, a board member of West Central Electric and Rushmore Electric, sits on the BEPC Board of Directors. There, at monthly meetings, he provides local input. Additionally, on peak-electric-use days – when it’s really hot or cold – we cycle voluntarily connected loads (turning the power on for a while, off for a while), including irrigation units, water heaters, AC units, etc. This prevents us from pushing the grid to its limits and reduces regional power costs.

At the federal level

Through the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, we advocate initiatives that promote reliability and affordability throughout the region.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Sign up for our load management program (if you haven’t already)

When critical, a few hours a month (for those who sign up), we remotely cycle water heaters, irrigation, and other electric loads to improve reliability during peak-use times. Our goal is to do this without causing you inconvenience while reducing the risk of outages and high wholesale power costs.

Start the conversation locally

Tell us what you think. Tell your co-op board member, your general manager and member services representative. Your voice is important to them. And don’t forget to email/write a letter to your state and federal representatives.

Kory Hammerbeck is the CEO/General Manager of Rushmore Electric Power Cooperative in Rapid City, South Dakota. Hammerbeck has worked in the electric industry for 23 years.