Following common sense principles benefits Basin Electric

At some point in your life you’ve likely been told to save for a rainy day, to not put all your eggs in one basket, or that when there are storms in life, you can always count on your family. These may be clichés, but there is a lot of truth in them.

A few months ago, the entire midsection of the United States experienced winter weather like some have never seen. States like North Dakota and South Dakota are used to cold winter weather and use a lot of electricity during these cold months to keep their houses warm, states like Texas typically use the most electricity during the summer to keep their homes cool. But in February, from North Dakota to Texas, everyone was trying to keep warm – and that was a big problem.

This was just the type of event that had the potential to cause widespread blackouts and drastically increase electric rates, and for some people, it did just that. Some saw massive electric bills for that one month’s electric bill, but members at the end of Basin Electric lines were able to rest easy because their rates stayed the same as they’d always been.

So what did Basin Electric do differently than these other energy providers – the ones that had to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars or even file bankruptcy because of the extremely high gas and power prices during the energy emergency? The co-op socked money away for a rainy day, counted on its “family” to provide what it needed in a situation like this, and didn’t rely on just one source of energy.

Read about how Basin Electric did this in Rainy day funds help Basin Electric weather the storm in the spring issue of Basin Today.