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Energy Delivery

The transmission grid is the interstate highway for electricity.

Basin Electric, with its subsidiaries, is a diversified energy group that generates electricity and produces natural gas and byproducts from the coal gasification process. This section of the Web site shows you how these electricity and gas products are delivered to wholesale customers.

It will also discuss how efforts to deregulate the electricity industry is affecting the national electricity grid.

Electricity delivery

Electricity generally cannot be stored, so it must move instantly over transmission lines from producer to buyer to avoid spot interruptions in service and even blackouts. Basin Electric owns 1,790 miles and maintains 1,876 miles of high-voltage transmission lines; 56 switchyards and substations that direct the flow of electricity and change its voltage; and 85 microwave installations used for communications and system protection.

Gas delivery

A for-profit subsidiary of Basin Electric, Dakota Gasification owns and operates the Great Plains Synfuels Plant northwest of Beulah, ND. The Synfuels Plant produces synthetic natural gas and byproducts of the coal gasification process.

The Synfuels Plant is of strategic importance to Basin Electric because it produces sufficient natural gas to fuel a 550-700-megawatt (MW) power plant that Basin Electric could optimize by direct use of gas output to make electricity or as a financial hedge for gas generation located elsewhere. For more information on where this natural gas is currently used and how it is delivered to market select gas delivery.

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• Energy Delivery
• Electricity Delivery
• Gas Delivery
• Glossary

Quotable

"The transmission grid is now being used in ways it was never meant to be. The transmission grid was not designed to move large amounts of electricity across the country. The grid does not operate in bits and pieces, and ownership of wires does not matter to the flow of electricity. Electricity uses the entire grid to get from generation to load."

~ Ted Humann, former Basin Electric senior vice president, Transmission

Transmission jargon

Q. What does leaning on the grid mean?

A. It means a utility is drawing unscheduled power from neighboring utilities.