Madison generators on standby
The city owns the generation plant, but Basin Electric leases the facility's operation with an agreement that the city can use its output in case of an emergency.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative
- April 20, 2010
Originally published in The Madison Daily Leader
Reported by Chuck Clement
The city of Madison and Basin Electric Power Cooperative worked together five years ago to construct a 10-megawatt electric generation plant that benefits both entities if their normal power supplies aren't meeting demand. Mayor Gene Hexom described the Madison power plant as an "insurance policy" for the city if a disaster struck, such as an ice storm, tornado or flood, which knocked out outside electricity supplies. Hexom said that Basin Electric also met its responsibilities in meeting federal requirements for possessing backup generation.
"It's for emergency and standby use only, and Basin calculates its output into the cooperative's peak generation supply," Hexom said.
For the city, the Madison Generation Plant serves as an emergency provider of power if the community's two suppliers of electricity -- Western Area Power Administration and Heartland Consumers Power District -- aren't supplying the juice.
Basin Electric benefits from having a peaking power plant available if demand from its customers grows too large for the co-op's coal, oil and wind-power electricity sources to handle.
Headquartered in Bismarck, N.D., Basin provides electricity to about 2.8 million customers in nine states and possesses about 3,770 megawatts of electric generation capacity. About 2,800 megawatts of Basin's capacity comes from coal.
Just in case the cooperative's regular generation isn't enough -- for example, on a cold January morning -- Basin Electric can fire up the Madison plant to help meet demand. The co-op also maintains other peaking plants along with Madison's -- the Earl F. Wisdom Generating Station Unit 2, Groton Generating Station and Spirit Mound Generating Station.
The Madison electric plant was completed in April 2005, but Basin Electric hasn't needed to use the generators to any large extent.
According to Dennis Poppen, municipal electric superintendent, the last time Basin needed generating assistance was on Dec. 16, 2008, when the plant was started at 3 p.m. and shut down at 9 p.m. For all of 2008, Basin ran the plant for its own use for 11 1/2 hours.
Otherwise, the city only tests the five 2,000-kilowatt generators for 60 minutes on a monthly basis to check the systems and keep the Caterpillar diesel engines running smoothly.
The idea of running the generating plant on a regular basis isn't in the cards. The city owns the generation plant, but Basin leases the facility's operation with an agreement that the city can use its output in case of an emergency.
The Madison plant's output isn't cost-effective either, at four times the price of a typical electricity supplier. Current prices for diesel fuel would bring the cost for a kilowatt-hour from the municipal generators at 16 cents to 18 cents per kwh, according to Poppen. Madison can purchase a kilowatt-hour of electricity from WAPA or Heartland at about 4 cents per kWh.
Poppen said the plant's output wouldn't meet Madison's daily needs for electricity. On a mild spring day, customers on the city's electric grid can demand about 11.5 megawatts of electricity. On a cold January day in 2009, Madison's winter peak demand for electricity grew to about 18 megawatts.
While it might seem as if the 10-megawatt peaking plant would prove inadequate to meet the city's electricity needs, Poppen said that some cooperation from customers would lower demand during an emergency.
"If people cooperated and turned off nonessential uses, and if factories were to shut down their electricity needs, the city could operate off the plant," Poppen said. "But we'd need cooperation to keep the load down."
If an emergency did arise, the work crews would also need some time to switch the electric grid over to the 10-megawatt plant. Poppen said the crews would also need to adjust the old 4,160-volt overhead utility line systems in part of the city to handle the 13,800-volt output from the diesel generators. In the future, the city plans to convert all of its electric grid to 13,800 volts.
When the generation plant was constructed, its cost was estimated at $5.5 million for the facility. To finance the project, Madison issued $4 million in city taxable bonds that are currently scheduled to be paid off in 2025. Jeff Heinemeyer, city finance officer, said that $3.765 million is still owed on the project's bonds.
In leasing the plant, Basin will pay $27,000 per month for a total of $324,000 for this year. The city will pay $13,000 this year to meet the total required bond payment of $337,000 in 2010. Heinemeyer said the annual payments on the city bonds will increase in future years.
Basin also pays $1,656 per month for maintenance of the plant.
"It's a good resource to have, and I guess we can count our blessings that the city hasn't had to use it yet for emergency purposes," Hexom said.
Headquarters
1717 East Interstate Avenue
Bismarck, ND 58503-0564 USA
Phone: 701.223.0441
Basin Electric Power Cooperative will provide cost-effective wholesale energy along with products and services that support and unite rural America.
