At Dakota Electric’s July board meeting, our board of directors voted to accept Great River Energy’s proposal to sell Coal Creek Station in North Dakota.

The board is responsible for placing the interests of all members first in making its decisions, including safety, reliability, environmental impact and rates. As your representatives, the board is entrusted with the authority to deliberate with full and timely access to information that cannot be shared with the public during certain periods of negotiations. We can understand how some of our members were frustrated by how and when we communicated this information. Decisions of this magnitude are rare. Going forward, we can and will do a better job communicating significant decisions with our members where we can.

Taking the feedback we received, we’ve made some improvements in order to be more informative and transparent. A new “Power Supply” webpage, which is accessible from our website’s homepage, features where your power comes from and its energy sources, more information about Great River Energy’s power supply and future energy initiatives. Additionally, Dakota Electric’s Environmental Disclosure Brochure is featured on this webpage.

Our homepage banner features a slide on news related to Great River Energy’s power supply transformation. Visitors to our site can click “Learn More” to view the most recent information about Great River Energy’s power supply changes as they progress.

We simplified our board of director’s contact page and created a separate page devoted to monthly board meetings. Upcoming meeting agendas will be posted further in advance and board summaries will be more detailed. General information on board meetings is also available.

We are committed to improving the timeliness of our social media posts, the way power supply information is communicated in Circuits and how members can find this information on our website.

We are always learning, listening and improving. We will strive to do a better job of providing timely information about Dakota Electric and our power supplier, Great River Energy. We appreciate the feedback.