Basin Electric explains large-load program and says NextEra projectcosts are applicant'borne

Chad Risau, director of community and member relations at Basin Electric, told Mercer County commissioners the cooperative's new large-load commercial program is designed to ensure that the cost and risk of serving very large electricity customers do not fall on existing members.

The program, Risau said, sets 25 megawatts as its threshold and places responsibility for studies, transmission upgrades and generation on applicants. "The financial responsibility for serving those loads is placed on the customer requesting the service," Risau said, describing a five-step review process that begins with an initial screening and can move to expensive interconnection and transmission studies paid by the applicant.

Why it matters: Commissioners and members of the public pressed Basin Electric about the scale of requests and the potential rate impact on residents. Risau said Basin Electric has roughly 20 applicants whose collective requests could exceed the cooperative's current generation capacity (the presenter contrasted roughly 10,000 megawatts of applicant interest with Basin Electric's reported capacity "just over 9,000 megawatts" in the meeting record). He emphasized the program's goal is to avoid "socializing" the capital costs across membership and to protect the cooperative's credit rating.

Presentation and process: Risau walked the panel through a three-phase, five-step approach that staff built with members and the board; the initial screening can take one to six months and interconnection and transmission studies can take six to 18 months or longer depending on study queues. Those studies, he said, are "incredibly expensive" and are borne by the applicant.

NextEra and Riverrun: Commissioners asked specific questions about an application from NextEra regarding the Riverrun Energy Center and whether transmission-line extensions or substation work would be needed. Basin Electric staff said that for the site discussed, interconnection to a nearby substation could be less than a mile; they reiterated that transmission and upgrade costs would be charged to NextEra ("All transmission cost and upgrades would be by the inter the entity with the infrastructure," a Basin staffer said at the meeting).

Rates and taxes: Members of the public raised a separate concern about capital-expenditure numbers shown during NextEra's presentations and how property-tax and capex estimates relate to rates. Basin staff clarified that capex figures shown in presentations were primarily property-tax and capital-expenditure estimates, not operational-rate projections, and that the large-load program relies on a separate tariff for large customers to isolate those costs. "That is part of that isolated, islanded-off tariff. It's its own rate," a Basin representative said.

Open items and limits: Basin Electric confirmed that as of the meeting no large-load applicant had yet executed a tariff under the program, so there were no active large-load customers paying the special rate. Commissioners and staff requested continued transparency about study results, interconnection routing and the planned ownership or operating agreements for associated gas or generation facilities.

Next steps: Basin Electric staff said they would continue to provide updates to the commission when projects advance through the program's decision points. The commission did not take an action on the presentation itself but used the session to seek clarifications about local impacts and who will bear capital costs.

Sources: Remarks and answers by Chad Risau, Basin Electric director of community and member relations, and exchanges with commissioners and public commenters at the Mercer County Commission meeting (transcript segments: topic intro SEG 597; discussion continues through SEG 1546).