Basin Electric's newest facility
Basin Electric is proud to announce plans to build a new natural gas-fueled generation facility in Williams County, North Dakota. The nearly $4 billion project, called the Bison Generation Station, will be constructed near the town of Epping. With two roughly 700 megawatt (MW) units, the combined-cycle power plant will produce approximately 1,470 MW, making it one of the largest electric generation projects in the cooperative’s history. Construction is expected to begin by late 2025 with anticipated commercial operation in 2030.
Learn more about the project in Basin Electric's official news release.
Meeting member growth
Member cooperatives are growing at an annual rate of 3.2% over the next 10 years; national average is 0.7%. Growth comes from many different areas including industrial, manufacturing, data processing, residential, small businesses, and agriculture.
Basin Electric has identified the need to develop approximately 1,400 megawatts of reliable, dispatchable power generation to help meet this growth. Bison Generation Station would meet this demand.
How does it work?
A combined-cycle power plant is an efficient way to harness the energy in natural gas by employing both a combustion turbine and a steam turbine to produce electricity.
Natural gas is burned to create energy that turns a combustion turbine, similar to a jet engine. The turbine is connected to a generator, producing electricity.
Exhaust heat from the combustion turbine is captured by a heat recovery steam generator and used to make steam. The steam turns a turbine, which is also connected to a generator, producing electricity.
Project Timeline
Approximate development timeline for the proposed natural gas-fueled combined-cycle power plant, pending the completion of project development and regulatory processes.
Additional resources
- Learn more about the benefits Bison Generation Station will bring to the community and how the location was selected: Download PDF
- See photos of the Bison Generation Station location and a rendering of the plant: Download PDF
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