Sioux Center Municipal Utilities is working toward adding more than 11 megawatts of local electric generation, improving the community’s long-term energy security.
The City Council took a first look at bids this week on 4 diesel generators to eventually be housed near Sioux Center’s north power substation. The council will consider bids at their next meeting.
The purpose of adding local generation would be dual pronged: this generation would help sustain affordability in Sioux Center’s power portfolio and also provide emergency power in an extreme situation in which power supply was cut off to Sioux Center. In that situation, this generation would partially power the town, which has a total peak demand of about 28 megawatts.
“Having local generation will give us the ability to do something in a catastrophic event,” Sioux Center Electric Department Head Ezra Weikert said. “When we have this generation, if we would lose power to the whole town, there would be something we could do to take care of our citizens.”
Earlier this year, the proposal to add generation was met with City Council approval, due in part to the fact that Sioux Center’s power provider, Missouri River Energy Services (MRES), has increased how much they pay members like Sioux Center to construct and have generation ready to use. MRES participates because they can then call on that generation when electricity is limited or very expensive on the entire grid, reducing their overall cost to provide energy to all members, which in turn benefits members like Sioux Center.
The estimated $24 million project will be funded primarily by MRES over 30 years. Ultimately, payments from MRES will cover most of the total project cost – including 30 years of operating costs.
“We’re grateful for MRES’ participation in this project – it will benefit Sioux Center for years to come,” said Utilities Manager Murray Hulstein. “Our decision to install this generation is highly influenced by the nation’s increased reliance on electrifying everything while at the same time taking away dispatchable resources like coal and natural gas.”