By Basin Electric
Across the nation, the demand for reliable, affordable electricity continues to grow and nowhere is that growth more evident than across Basin Electric’s service territory. Basin Electric, a not-for-profit generation and transmission cooperative owned by 139 member cooperative systems across nine states, serves 3 million consumers. Headquartered in Bismarck, North Dakota, the cooperative focuses on an all-of-the-above energy strategy to meet that growth head on.
As communities expand, industries evolve, and new technologies emerge, the need for reliable infrastructure has become both an operational challenge and an exciting opportunity. Basin Electric and its members stand at the forefront of this moment, ensuring the cooperative’s legacy of providing reliable and affordable electricity continues while preparing the system for the demands of tomorrow.
Building For Tomorrow, Balancing Costs Today
National electricity sales have grown by about 1% annually this century, while at Basin Electric, members’ unit sales have increased more than 5% per year. Meeting that demand requires thoughtful planning and significant investment, all while navigating higher costs for materials, workforce challenges, and regulatory requirements.
To meet this demand and satisfy its obligation to power rural America, Basin Electric is undertaking one of the most ambitious capital build-out plans in its history. With the natural gas-fueled Pioneer Generation Station Phase IV now in operation, the substantial number of transmission projects completed in 2025, and construction set to begin in 2026 on the 1490-megawatt (MW) natural gas-fueled Bison Generation Station, Basin Electric is making remarkable progress putting steel in the ground. These critical investments are essential for long-term reliability, though they come with significant costs. Today’s reliable electric grid is the result of decades of thoughtful investment in power generation and transmission.
Mitigating Risk, Empowering Communities
Today’s headlines are filled with stories about the technology industry’s insatiable need for electricity, whether it be artificial intelligence, social media, or cloud computing. This has led to a common misconception: that Basin Electric’s capital expenditure growth is being driven by data center demand. While Basin Electric currently serves roughly 300 MW of data centers, its large capital investments are actually driven by traditional member load growth.
As requests for new service grew from 25 to hundreds and eventually to thousands of megawatts, Basin Electric recognized the need for a new approach to serve these loads. In early 2025, Basin Electric worked with its members to develop a large-load business model. This model shifts much of the development, financing, and operational risk from Basin Electric and its members to the large loads themselves, thereby insulating members from additional rate pressure, stranded assets, and other risks associated with large loads.
When it comes to infrastructure, it is easy to think only of steel, concrete, power lines, and the dollars and cents to pay for them. But at Basin Electric, we know these projects are about more than what gets built in the ground-they are about people. The electrons Basin Electric produces are the raw materials of a modern economy, powering communities and enabling people to pursue their varied work, business, and personal interests. Reliable and affordable energy is a key building block of higher standards of living, helping communities everywhere thrive.
