South Dakota Public Utilities Commissioners grant an increase in electric fees for Otter Tail Power customers.
Otter Tail Power company raises its rate for capital improvements for South Dakota customers.
Kristi Feigen is the chairperson of the PUC. She wanted assurance Otter Tail Power had tried all other avenues before raising rates.
“So when you refurbish, because it does not look like a major change in megawatts to help with accreditation or whatever. Is it because the interconnection only had that many megawatts? And I don’t know a lot about refurbishing I guess, you couldn’t refurbish it to more megawatts? The turbines,” asked Feigen.
Otter Tail Power officials said refurbishing is doable but not financially responsible for the company. They said they need to build more infrastructure.
Bryce Haugen represents Otter Tail Power Company. He said in upgrading infrastructure the obsolete wind turbine blades are recycled.
"Old blades, those will be, as a part of our contract with General Electric for NOVA. They will cut down the blades, at site to truck-size loads and they will be sent to a facility that recycles them and they have a couple of facilities that do this. The most common is that they are ground up and used as into a concrete mix,” said Haugen.
Commissioner Chris Nelson praised Otter Tail Power’s dedication to recycling used blades.
Commissioners voted unanimously to approve Otter Tail Power’s rate increase.
Customers are expected to see an average bill of $112 a month. This is less than what Otter Tail asked to increase monthly bills by almost $8 dollars instead of the ruled $4.
