Organization
Basin Electric’s core business is generating and transmitting wholesale bulk electric power to customers, primarily to our member rural electric systems, which are located in nine states.
Corporate Profile
- A not-for-profit generation and transmission cooperative incorporated in 1961 to provide supplemental power to a consortium of rural electric cooperatives
- Diversified energy portfolio of dispatchable and non-dispatchable resources. Dispatchable resources have a readily available fuel supply to power their generation, whereas non-dispatchable resources rely on intermittent, renewable fuel and produce electricity when weather conditions are right.
- Consumer owned by 139 member cooperative systems
- Serves 3 million electric consumers
- Members' service territories comprise nearly 500,000 square miles in nine states
- At end of year 2024, Basin Electric operated 5,217 megawatts (MW) of wholesale electric generating capability and had 8,427 MW of generating capacity within its resource portfolio
- Operates 12 transmission maintenance shops or service centers across 4 states
- Owns and/or maintains 2,631 miles of high-voltage transmission
- Owns and/or maintains substation equipment in 93 locations and has equipment ownership in 20 additional locations
- Owns and/or maintains telecommunications equipment at 118 telecommunication sites across seven states
RESOURCE PROFILE
Basin Electric's core business is generating and transmitting wholesale bulk electric power to customers, primarily to our member rural electric systems, which are located in nine states: Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
Our largest subsidiary, the for-profit Dakota Gasification Company, owns and operates the Great Plains Synfuels Plant near Beulah, North Dakota, which gasifies lignite coal and captures some of the carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) and sends them to produce several value-added products.
Basin Electric owned 4,274 megawatts (MW) and operated 5,217 MW of electric generating capacity by end of year 2024, of which 981 MW is for participants of the Missouri Basin Power Project (MBPP), and 80 MW is jointly owned by Basin Electric and its Class A member, Corn Belt Power Cooperative, Humboldt, Iowa. Our electric generation facilities are located in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Iowa.
Basin Electric's total winter season generating capacity portfolio was 8,427 MW at the end of 2024. Basin Electric’s generation capacity portfolio includes 4,627 MW of dispatchable (coal, natural gas, hydro), 2,517 MW of non-dispatchable (wind, solar, recovered energy generation – REG) resources, with the balance consisting of capacity-only purchases.
Data updated July 2025.
