Visionary leadership reshapes co-op
Two men who helped diversify the fuels used at one of the nation’s largest generation and transmission electric cooperatives are moving on to new challenges.
Electric Co-op Today
- October 21, 2011
Derrill Holly
Read the story on Electric Co-op Today's website: Visionary leadership reshapes co-op
Ron Harper, CEO and general manager, and Ron Rebenitsch, manager of alternative technologies, have announced plans to retire from Basin Electric Power Cooperative. With the support of co-op directors from nine states, they helped add waste heat, biomass and wind to the generation mix of the Bismarck, ND-based G&T.
“Diversification of generation fuels is one of the keys to success in our industry,” said Harper, who joined the co-op as CEO and general manager in 2000 after 30 years with distribution co-ops.
“Coal has played an important role in developing our local, regional and national economy and must remain a part of an overall energy strategy,” Harper said. “We just need to continue to find ways to use it more efficiently and effectively.”
Since 2001, Basin Electric has invested more than $1 billion in wind and waste heat recovery energy projects in North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana and Iowa.
The installed capacity of those projects topped 718 megawatts in 2011, adding enough to power more than 262,000 homes. The projects are providing power to more than 2.8 million co-op consumer-members and utility customers in nine states.
“Affordable energy is a key to sustaining this country’s economy,” Harper said. “I remain concerned about our ability to provide affordable energy going forward because of our country’s lack of a strategic and affordable energy plan.”
The wind, waste heat and biomass projects have also produced new revenue streams for farmers, pipeline operators, and agricultural co-ops from land leases, feedstock sales, and new markets for their waste products.
“This home-grown energy resource provides a boost to the local economy through significant tax revenues,” said Rebenitsch, who has worked for Basin Electric since 1976.
“When wind generation is available, it can usually displace generation from other sources and reduce overall consumption of fossil fuels,” Rebenitsch said. “For a landowner, each lease payment for the roughly half-acre disturbed by a wind turbine provides a very high value ‘crop.’”
Rebenitsch has overseen development of more than 270 megawatts of wind capacity owned by the G&T, as well as 44 megawatts of generation from recovered energy projects. Those include eight waste heat projects which recover exhaust heat from industrial sites, 82 turbines in North Dakota’s Minot Wind project completed in 2010, and the 108-turbine Crow Lake wind project in South Dakota completed earlier this year.
The G&T also maintains power-purchase agreements for more than 440 megawatts of additional wind capacity.
“These resources provide a long-term hedge against future fuel cost volatility,” Rebenitsch said. “All forms of energy—wind, solar, fossil fuels, nuclear, energy efficiency—need to be part of the equation. We’ve shown that wind generation can be done and that cooperatives are well-positioned to lead the way on other alternative sources.”
Rebenitsch is expected to leave Basin Electric later this autumn. Harper’s tenure as general manager and CEO will end in December.
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.
