To the Editor:

Basin Electric Power Cooperative (Basin Electric) owes its cooperative members $471 million for adding non-utility expenses from its for-profit Dakota Gasification Company (DGC), which produces natural gas and fertilizer, in its rates.

This is according to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) administrative law judge Scott Hempling, in an initial decision issued June 11, for two rates case for 2020 and 2021. The co-op’s customers “will finally learn what they have been paying for,” Hempling said.

Basin Electric was and continues to add the expenses - losses from DGC - into electric rates, which in the end are passed on to the members of Dakota Energy Cooperative and all the cooperative members in Basin’s service territory.

Also, keep in mind that this decision covers only TWO YEARS of DGC losses. DGC has had losses in approximately eight of the last 11 years.

Dakota Energy members’ share of the $471 million overcharges is $4.2 million. That amount is more than $75 per month for every Dakota Energy member for 2020 and 2021.

Judge Hempling said: “Imagine giving customers true choice: between an electric supplier whose rates reflect only the costs of electric service, and an electric supplier whose rates make the consumer an involuntary risk-taker in a gasification-urea-fertilizer business, a business whose profits and losses depend on national and global commodity prices, where the customer has no legal ability to exit those risks and no actionable information about or influence over them.”

Hempling also stated, “To assume that an ordinary electric consumer would choose the latter supplier is to hallucinate.”

If you would like to see all the details follow this the link to the FERC document: ‘www.ferc.gov’, choose ‘eLibrary’ and search “basin electric, scott hempling.”

Mike Moncur
Miller