In a recent Montana PBS special, the CEO of Montana’s monopoly utility, NorthWestern Energy, expressed frustration that the company doesn’t get more credit for its carbon-free energy resources. While it is true that more than half of the utility’s electricity comes from carbon-free resources, NorthWestern’s contribution to those sources is negligible. Almost all of these resources are either contracted (many of which NorthWestern is required to enter into under the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act [PURPA] of 1978) or hydro that NorthWestern bought from PPL Montana at an inflated price following the dissolution of the Montana Power Company as a result of deregulation. None of these have been built on NorthWestern’s initiative.
The largest wind resource in NorthWestern’s portfolio, the Judith Gap Wind Farm, which supplied over 6% of the utility’s delivered electricity in 2022, is on a contract set to expire in 2026. Unlike most of NorthWestern’s wind and solar resources, this contract is not required under PURPA. Rather than announcing plans to renew this contract, NorthWestern instead plans to acquire further ownership in the Colstrip coal plant that same year, citing a dubious “capacity shortage” in its portfolio. Having built almost no clean energy infrastructure of its own, the company is doubling down on investments in additional fossil fuel resources such as the proposal Yellowstone County Generating Station (YCGS) methane plant near Laurel and this impending Colstrip acquisition.
Meanwhile, NorthWestern is celebrating its backhanded agreement with Missoula County and the Cities of Bozeman and Missoula to implement a “Green Power Program.” The Green Power Program allows participating customers to pay a premium for clean power generated at a dedicated renewable energy facility for the program. This is a win for the local governments who have worked tirelessly over the last several years to budge the utility into clean energy development, and it will help those communities reach their clean energy goals. Unfortunately, the program is capped for an initial project of no more than 50 megawatts (MW) of capacity, paling in comparison to capacities at the YCGS and in the additional ownership of Colstrip. Judith Gap was built in 2005 and has 135 MW capacity, with wind turbine technology advancing substantially over the last 20 years to generate more power at cheaper costs (the largest wind farm in the U.S. is 1,550 MW). NorthWestern should not be celebrated for charging utility customers more for clean electricity that it could be building on its own initiative as a more affordable alternative to its fossil fuel resources. As the largest utility in Montana, NorthWestern can and should do more to build out significant clean energy generation capacity, and the path forward is clear.
This article was published in the March 2024 issue of Down To Earth.
