Three Panhandle Public Power Districts have announced their intent to leave the Colorado-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association in two years, and seek their wholesale power supplies elsewhere.
The decisions last week by the boards of PREMA, Roosevelt Public Power and Chimney Rock Public Power come on the heels of Tri-State’s overall wholesale price increase of 7.5 percent for 2026 announced in September, and word that rate hikes up to or in excess of 30 percent can be expected over the next five years.
Chimney Rock General Manager Curtis Kayton told KNEB News recent changes in the policies, regulations and laws of Colorado are the big driver behind Tri-State’s new rates. “As that (Colorado policy) has grown significantly cleaner and greener and, it’s just become overzealous, and those effects are showing up in the electric rates. And so, this is a matter of affordability, and we just flat can’t… we can’t pay for Colorado politics and policy and law anymore. And, so we’re giving our notice.”
At the end of 2023, Tri-State filed a new two-phase Electric Resources Plan with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission that Association leadership said would lead to an 89% reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions in Colorado, relative to 2005, and 70% clean energy used by its members system-wide in 2030.
While all of Nebraska is a public power state, PREMA General Manager Zac Bryant told KNEB News the Tri-State rate increase exacerbates a difference already in place between public power districts in the Panhandle and those in the rest of Nebraska.
“Two thirds of the state have other options that come at savings probably 30% or greater, less than what we pay for now. It’s a concern to us how that affects our members, and so that’s a driving force to seek more (and) different options that are more affordable to our members,” said Bryant.
Kayton noted the relationship between the public power districts in this part of the state and Tri-State goes back to the 1950s, and so while it’s an arrangement that’s difficult to walk away from, the step is needed as the district looks out for their members.
The three Panhandle districts all set Dec. 1, 2027, which is in accordance with the terms of Tri-State’s Contract Termination Payment (CTP) tariff, as the date to withdraw from their existing wholesale electric service contracts which had been set to expire in either 2050 or 2066.
In their news release announcing the withdrawal, Tri-State officials noted that the CTP tariff on file with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) provides a process should a utility member elect to withdraw from Tri-State membership and terminate its WESC early, including requirements for a two-year notice and the payment of a CTP to Tri-State. Each CTP amount would be determined consistent with the FERC tariff and orders, certain elements of which remain subject to ongoing appeals.
Tri-State said for the twelve months that ended September 30, 2025, CRPPD, PREMA and RPPD together comprised approximately 1.9 percent of Tri-State’s utility member revenue, and 1.3 percent of Tri-State’s operating revenue.
The move by each of the public power districts is not without precedent. Northwest Rural Public Power District, based in Hay Springs, provided a second non-conditional notice at the end of Dec. 2024 that it would withdraw from Tri-State as of Jan. 1, 2027.
On Feb. 1, 2025, Granby, Colorado-based Mountain Parks Electric, Inc. left the Association, having provided an unconditional notice to Tri-State in January 2023.
Mountain Parks’ announced CTP to Tri-State at the time was approximately $86 million, including that utility’s share of Tri-State’s power purchase obligations; however, Mountain Parks received a credit for its patronage capital in Tri-State, resulting in a cash payment of approximately $71.6 million from Mountain Parks to Tri-State.
https://ruralradio.com/kneb-am/news/three-panhandle-public-power-districts-announce-plans-to-seek-new-power-wholesaler/
