By Bob Sahr
General Manager, East River Electric Power Cooperative
East River celebrated its 75th anniversary this past year. When individual distribution cooperatives across our region joined together to form their own generation and transmission cooperative, they did so with the knowledge that, through collaboration and joint effort, they could accomplish much more together than each individual cooperative could accomplish alone. And as we celebrate the milestone, we also celebrate our continued focus on providing value and working for our member systems into the future.
East River and our member systems work together in partnership to plan, execute and build for tomorrow. We continue to do so in an electric industry that is rapidly evolving and experiencing unprecedented change and growth. And, we are growing with that change, as it provides us with unique and continued opportunities to deliver affordable, reliable power for the future.
Through our collective efforts, we continue to supply the region with a diversified, all-of-the-above generation mix, navigate an ever-changing political and regulatory climate and provide cybersecurity resources and innovative technologies as cyber threats and artificial intelligence rapidly change the technological landscape. We continue to advocate for safe use of electricity, cooperative education and workforce development. We are planning ahead to upgrade and build out the grid of the future. The foundation of our cooperative has always been collaboration, and our future will continue to be shaped by a shared commitment to advocating for and serving members.
With growing demand, electric cooperatives are facing challenges. We continue to manage rising power supply and infrastructure costs while maintaining the reliable power that members depend on. Costs are going up, and these pressures are being felt across the electric industry, requiring thoughtful operational planning, responsible financial stewardship, and long-term strategies that can be tailored to current needs. There’s been a lot of talk about large new electric loads, including data centers, and what that could mean for rates and reliability. These are legitimate questions that we’re also asking, and we have some answers. In the co-op world, we typically consider a large load to be over two megawatts. Some of these data centers are closer to 250 or 500 megawatts. Compare that to an ethanol plant at 5 to 10 megawatts or a mid-sized city of 10 to 20 megawatts; it’s a magnitude that is well above what we are used to serving.
Each decision we make about large loads for the future is evaluated by asking ourselves if a project fosters greater reliability and long-term affordability for our member cooperatives and the communities they serve. Protecting our existing members remains our number one priority. We have an established large load process in place, and any new significant load, whether it’s a data center or another major facility, is required to pay its fair share of the infrastructure and generation needed to serve it, so that members at the end of the line don’t have to pay for those costs. That includes appropriate rate structures in coordination with our power supply partners to ensure those costs are not shifted onto legacy members.
General operational and construction costs are rising across every industry. That’s the reality of building and maintaining the infrastructure required to serve growing energy needs. What’s important is that, as a cooperative, we exist for our member-owners, and that sets us apart. We remain focused on strategies to maintain competitive wholesale rates, like thoughtful planning and responsible spending. Our membership in our regional transmission organization (RTO), the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), continues to generate revenue, helping to offset power supply expenses. We continue to look for new revenue opportunities through our participation in the RTO.
In 2025, East River set in motion its largest construction work plan in the cooperative’s history and continued work on our ten-year transmission system upgrade plan that was launched in 2019. With millions of dollars in planned investment, the work reflected not just growth, but the reality of delivering reliable service across a system that is changing in scale, reliability requirements and complexity. Over the last year, we completed several key projects designed to strengthen our system’s backbone and marked an important milestone in our upgrade plan by completing the first fully networked segment of East River’s system under the SPP Integrated Transmission Plan. The project hardens our system and better integrates it into the regional grid, strengthening reliability and positioning us for the future.
East River and our power supply partners continue to take an all-of-the-above approach to power generation, focused on reliability, competitive rates and long-term stability for our members. Our generation includes a balanced mix of dispatchable generation, low-cost hydropower from the Missouri River dams and renewables like wind and solar. Our wholesale power provider, Basin Electric, continues to add resources to meet future demand across the region, including new renewable generation coming online and the Bison Generation Station, a nearly 1,500-megawatt, natural gas-fueled facility that will provide dependable, on-demand energy.
We remain actively engaged on behalf of our members in the political and regulatory process to ensure we stay ahead of policies impacting our industry and help shape a path that aligns with our mission. Issues like permitting timelines and the ability to develop infrastructure are front and center. Our focus is on making sure the voice of our members is represented as political policies and decisions are made.
Along with the investments we are making in the grid, we continue to focus on investing in people. Safety remains at the center of everything we do. We continue to partner with our member systems through our Co-ops in the Classroom Program, regional electric safety communications campaign and ongoing training to promote electrical safety across our communities and within our team.
We continue to invest in our future workforce by partnering with higher-education facilities to invest in education and training programs that will ensure we have a qualified, highly skilled employment pipeline. When our neighbors at Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative needed help in the aftermath of a severe storm that caused significant damage to their region’s infrastructure, we organized a team of lineworkers and specialized equipment to support their restoration efforts. In our hour of need, we know they’ll be there for us.
The Rural Electric Economic Development (REED) Fund, founded in 1996, continues to support communities. It has now provided more than $144 million in economic investments to businesses and community ventures to aid in our region’s development since its founding. Governed by 27 cooperatives in South Dakota and Minnesota, including Central Electric, REED highlights the strength of our membership’s commitment to our communities.
And as always, we also worked closely with our members to live out the cooperative principle of commitment to community by giving back to those we serve through charitable giving, events, youth outreach programs, education and scholarships.
As a not-for-profit wholesale power supplier, we exist to enhance the value of our member systems. Our 75-year history has shown us that, as cooperatives working together, we not only rise from adversity, we flourish. We adapt, we’re resilient and we’re committed to each other’s success and the principles that make cooperatives different than any other type of organization.