Climate Connections: Missoulians can show up for lower electric bills
Katy Spence
NorthWestern Energy has released its draft 20-year electricity plan and will be holding public meetings across the state to gather feedback and input. The Missoula meeting will be on Wed., Jan. 28 at 5:30 pm at Missoula College. Unfortunately, NorthWestern’s plan is deeply flawed.
The Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) process is intended to ensure that our investor-owned, monopoly utility is always planning for the most affordable and reliable electricity and delivery system. The problem is NorthWestern Energy is known to tip the scales in favor of more expensive energy generation – which increases company profits.
This IRP process comes on the heels of NorthWestern Energy being granted a rate increase of approximately 17% to base level electricity rates, and an overall 12% increase to residential electricity bills since July 2024. Even though Montanans are not using more power than they have in the past, they are paying substantially more.
Now, NorthWestern Energy has signaled that it intends to double or nearly triple the amount of electricity it supplies in order to serve large data center customers. Across the nation, these large data centers are being subsidized by ratepayers, who are seeing further increases to their electricity bills so large tech companies can get energy at discounted rates. That’s not to mention impacts to water resources, grid reliability, or wildfire risk.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to show up and speak out for transparent processes, fair consideration of renewable energy like wind and solar, and planning for more transmission connectivity to increase affordability and reliability.
Here are four areas of concern in NorthWestern Energy’s IRP:
NorthWestern undervalues wind and solar energy.
Wind and solar energy projects are some of the most affordable types of electricity available, and they’re able to go from concept to reality in a fraction of the time for other energy generation. Most fossil fuel facilities such as coal or gas plants need careful consideration and permitting for the copious air and water pollution they emit, and the fuel required to run them is volatile and expensive. Yet, NorthWestern relies heavily on fossil fuel plants in its plan, without giving fair consideration to wind and solar energy. On top of that, NorthWestern is doubling down on expensive, experimental nuclear energy. Rather than investing in proven technologies with free fuel (wind and sunlight), NorthWestern wants to invest in extremely expensive nuclear power plants where it can charge its customers a high return on investment.NorthWestern Energy inflates how much electricity is needed to justify building more generation.
NorthWestern has a lot of leeway in how it defines what “enough” energy is (i.e. will peak demand in 2045 be 1200 MW or 2200 MW?) and what avenues are considered for meeting that demand.
NorthWestern justifies its wishes for expensive nuclear and fossil fuel power plants by inflating how much electricity it actually needs. Contrary to the company’s talking points, Montana is a net exporter of electricity – we already produce more than we need and sell the excess to other utilities. With proper grid management, we wouldn’t need to significantly overbuild the electricity system as NorthWestern proposes… unless the company is looking to boost profit margins even further.
NorthWestern Energy ignores climate change entirely.
Despite the increasingly apparent impacts of a changing climate and NorthWestern’s constitutional obligation to maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment – including a stable climate – for present and future generations, no scenario in the utility’s IRP is in line with NorthWestern’s Net Zero by 2050 Vision. Furthermore, NorthWestern doesn’t even break down its portfolio greenhouse gas emissions by power plant and neglects to conduct a social cost of greenhouse gases analysis to examine the true costs of its fossil fuel-reliant portfolios. While planning to continue exacerbating the climate crisis, NorthWestern includes no climate resiliency and adaptation planning in its IRP (despite the utility charging its customers for wildfire mitigation)..
NorthWestern Energy limits transparency and public participation.
NorthWestern continues to create barriers to transparency and public participation. For example, when required to make its electric technical advisory committee (ETAC) meetings open to the public, NorthWestern gave the public view-only access to these meetings, publishing cursory agendas and meeting minutes, and making meeting materials available weeks or months after a meeting took place. (Check our website for more examples.)
The Jan 28. meeting in Missoula is the first of several opportunities for comment. After NorthWestern holds four public meetings, it will submit the IRP to the Public Service Commission (PSC), which will also gather input. The previous IRP meetings drew record crowds, and it was clear that PSC staff took input from commenters and used it to inform their recommendations (how the Commissioners treated those recommendations is a different story). The PSC meetings are likely to be no earlier than May. If you can’t make the Wednesday meeting in person, you can still submit comments via this online form or via email to IRP@northwestern.com.
Your voice is needed to speak up for our clean energy future.
See you there!
Katy Spence is the Communications & Engagement Director for the Montana Environmental Information Center. Climate Smart Missoula brings this Climate Connections column to you twice per month. Learn more about what we do, sign up for our e-newsletter, or support our work at missoulaclimate.org.