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Renewable Energy

Basin Electric is forging ahead with exploration of new, innovative technologies for keeping our energy fleet running cleanly and efficiently. Many rural Americans would like our nation to become less dependent on foreign oil resources. Developing renewable energy at home is one way to make a difference.

Basin Electric and its members are increasingly interested in alternative forms of renewable energy, and we are working together to explore options for generating the cleanest, most affordable electricity possible. Basin Electric believes conservation and sustainability of natural resources depends on supplying affordable, clean energy to as many people and industries as possible, and exploring new technologies for improving how energy is produced.

The key is balance. Basin Electric currently owns or purchases the output of 136 megawatts (MW) of wind energy and 22 MW of green energy for a total of 158 MW green energy in our energy portfolio.  Creating our energy future will entail a mix of both carbon-based and renewable energy resources.

Promise of Renewable Future

Basin Electric supports the national "25 by '25" initiative. The "25 by '25" initiative sets a voluntary goal calling for 25 percent of the nation’s energy sources – electric power, transportation fuels, industrial and commercial – to come from renewable resources, including hydropower, by the year 2025. The initiative ties in with the goal Basin Electric set in 2005 declaring that, by 2010, 10 percent of the energy it produces will come from renewable resources. Basin currently generates 158 megawatts of electricity using renewable resources, which include wind energy and waste heat to produce electricity. About 205 megawatts would be needed to meet the 10 percent goal. A megawatt is roughly enough electricity to power 1,000 homes. Basin Electric is about 80 percent toward reaching that goal.

Green tag sales

Basin Electric’s renewable generating resources are producing more than just electricity. They’re also producing Tradable Renewable Credits or “green tags.” Sale of green tags recently surpassed the one million mark or 1,026,000 megawatt-hours (MWh). A green tag represents the environmental attribute associated with producing one MWh of electricity from an electric generating source such as wind, small hydro, solar or biomass. Basin Electric’s green tags are generated primarily from wind farms either owned by Basin Electric or by purchasing energy from other wind resources. The sale of green tags began in 2001, just prior to four of Basin Electric wind turbines being placed in operation. Green tags are purchased by Basin Electric’s member systems and other entities including the Minot Air Force Base (ND) and the Ellsworth Air Force Base, Rapid City, SD.

Green 'recovered' energy

Basin Electric has a contract to purchase 22 megawatts of renewable or “green” generating base-load capacity from four generating stations owned by Ormat Technologies Inc., and fueled by waste heat recovered from the exhaust of gas turbines at existing compressor stations located along the Northern Border Pipeline in North Dakota and South Dakota.

Environmentally benign, these units have near-zero emissions and minimal impact on the environment. The energy from these units is enough to serve the electrical needs of about 5,000 average residential homes. Basin Electric is selling green tags associated with this project.

Members serve ethanol loads

Fourteen ethanol plants presently served by the member cooperatives produce nearly 600 million gallons of ethanol and require 60 MW of power. That represents 15 percent of the total ethanol production in the United States from those plants. If proposed ethanol facilities are built, they will more than double the ethanol production and the amount of power required. Less foreign oil and more ethanol creates a more secure energy future for America.

Wind-to-hydrogen

Basin Electric has contracted with Hydrogenics Corp. to supply an electrolyzer-based hydrogen refueling station for installation in Minot, ND. In addition to the core electrolyzer module, Hydrogenics is supplying compression, storage and dispenser equipment as part of the contract. The station is one of the first United States-based hydrogen fueling stations to use electricity from a wind power resource to produce hydrogen from water, in this case using electricity generated by wind resources either owned or contracted by Basin Electric.

The hydrogen produced will be used to refuel hydrogen-powered vehicles, demonstrating a linkage between wind power and vehicle refueling. The project will demonstrate the ability and practicality of making and using hydrogen energy with zero carbon emissions, using excess wind power that might otherwise be under utilized. This capability can potentially lead to significantly enhanced overall efficiencies of existing and future wind power installations.

The installation of the electrolyzer fueling station at North Dakota State University’s North Central Research Extension Center is an integral component of a Department of Energy-sponsored wind-hydrogen project announced by U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan’s office in September 2004.

Hybrid Vehicle Project

Showing a commitment to new technologies, conservation and the environment, Basin Electric and other cooperatives within the Renewable Distributed Energy Group (RDEG) have proposed a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) project, which would use cooperative-generated power to "fuel" co-op vehicles. The RDEG is part of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) Cooperative Research Network (CRN).

As part of the project, four conventional hybrid vehicles will be converted to "plug-in" hybrids. The vehicles will be operated and maintained by Basin Electric and three other co-ops from around the country: Salem Electric Cooperative in Oregon, Jackson Electric Membership Cooperative in Georgia and Platte-Clay Electric Cooperative in Missouri.

Each co-op participating in the project will convert a gas/electric hybrid vehicle to a PHEV. Each participant will be responsible for maintaining detailed records of the use and energy requirements of the vehicles, said Rob Rebenitsch, Basin Electric manager of member marketing. Basin Electric will use its plug-in hybrid within the co-ops current vehicle fleet. 

PCOR 

Basin Electric participates in the Plains CO2 Reduction Partnership (PCOR), a DOE regional carbon sequestration partnership developed to better understand the technical and economic feasibility of sequestering CO2 emissions from stationary sources in the central interior of North America.

Canadian Clean Power Coalition

Basin Electric is a member of the Canadian Clean Power Coalition (CCPC). Initiated in 2003, the CCPC Project is comprised of seven founding Canadian companies that operated 90 percent of Canada’s coal-based generation capacity, and several Canadian and American partners. Their multi-stage objectives are to demonstrate the future of clean coal technology, and emissions and retrofit technology, including construction of a "Greenfield" plant by 2010-2012, and testing of advanced Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) systems for gasifying coal. Basin Electric is actively involved in the testing of low-rank fuels such as lignite, which is burned in its North Dakota facilities.

What kind of energy future can you expect from Basin Electric?

• Expect a G&T cooperative committed to its members, their customers and the communities they serve. That means we are charged with putting forth our best efforts toward employing clean coal technologies and best practices in our operations and delivery systems.
• Expect us to seek out renewable energy resources for power generation to support rural America and the regional economy. That means we will practice load management, conservation, reclamation, and encourage renewable energy and other “green” practices in our service territories.
• Expect us to keep building on humankind's greatest achievement in the past century – responding to consumer demand for power. That means we will uphold the seven cooperative principles and business model as the best foundation for energy development now and in the future.

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Basin Electric supports 25 x 25 initiative for renewable energy

Green tags

“Although a green tag is an intangible product, it is a value to the purchaser from an environmental viewpoint. Green tags offer a way for a consumer or business to offset or reduce their environmental footprint. And those buyers are willing to pay for contributing to environment enhancement."

~ Ron Rebenitsch, Basin Electric manager of member marketing

Wind-to-hydrogen

“Promoting and demonstrating how hydrogen technologies can further enhance our wind energy goals is a key component of North Dakota’s ongoing energy strategy.... We believe hydrogen technology can become an important part of our future energy mix, and we are pleased to be playing a role in this ground-breaking project. Through this project we are advancing North Dakota’s reputation for developing renewable energy technologies and contributing to a national objective to reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels."

~ Ron Rebenitsch, Basin Electric manager of member marketing. Rebenitsch was honored with the Utility Wind Integration Group's (UWIG) Annual Achievement Award in April 2006 for his efforts in developing wind generation resources at Basin Electric

Fueled by hydrogen

No easy job

"It's not an easy job. I think it's important for the membership here to know, for Basin to do this, the scale and the effort necessary, the decisions and commitment they have to make. It is a challenge to the electricity industry that is unprecedented to what they’ve had in the past. We’ve electrified the countryside, probably the greatest achievement by mankind in the last century. I think going forward we have the ability to sustain that and maintain that, but protect the environment and the global situation that we have, too."

~ Hank Courtright, senior vice president of Member Services and Environment at the Electric Power Research Institute