Don’t be fooled by NorthWestern Energy and the PSC’s spin on the latest rate increase to Montanan’s energy bills. In November 2025, the Montana Public Service Commission (PSC) announced it denied $43 million in rate increases to NorthWestern Energy “to the benefit of Montana customers.” So why are Montana customers still paying more?
MEIC’s Energy Transition Engineer, Nick Fitzmaurice, breaks down the last eight years of rising electricity rates and how the utility keeps getting away with increasing our rates.
- Learn more about NorthWestern’s 2024/2025 rate case on MEIC’s webpage: https://meic.org/northwestern-energy-rate-case/
- Read MEIC’s Analysis on the Rate Case Final Order here: https://meic.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Updated-Rate-Case-Decision-MEIC-Resource-4.pdf
Now, NorthWestern Energy is proposing a merger with Black Hills Energy, which serves more than a million customers in eight states. The new monopoly utility would serve more than 2 million customers, and Montanans will become much less of a priority in the proposed new company’s structure.
Even worse, this enormous new monopoly will be laser-focused on data centers.
The Montana PSC has an ongoing contested docket (2025.10.078) on whether to approve the application for the merger, with a public hearing kicking off Tuesday, May 12 at 9 AM in the PSC’s Bollinger Conference Room in Helena (1701 Prospect Ave). This is your chance to speak up and tell the PSC that we need transparency about NorthWestern’s plans for data centers – before a merger is approved.
Learn more here: https://meic.org/bill-tracker/#/250
