Consumer Assistance | Energy | Telecom | Warehouse | Commission Actions | Miscellaneous

SOUTH DAKOTA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
2014 Highlights

Leadership
Chairperson Gary Hanson
Vice Chairperson Chris Nelson
Commissioner Kristie Fiegen

Electric
Energy Efficiency
Grain Warehouse
Leadership
Natural Gas
Pipeline Siting, Safety and Inspection
Public Outreach and Consumer Assistance
Renewable Energy
Telecommunications
Wireless

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

  • Commissioner Chris Nelson was appointed to chair the Committee on Telecommunications for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. The appointment also earned Nelson a spot on NARUC's board of directors. The 28-member Committee on Telecommunications develops NARUC policy through resolutions about current issues that guide the association's message in working with Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and the court system. The committee also works with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Trade Commission.  
  • Commissioner Chris Nelson was appointed by the Federal Communications Commission to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service. Nelson is one of four state utility regulators on the joint board, which also includes delegates from the FCC and a consumer advocate representative. The board is charged with making recommendations to the FCC related to federal universal service policies. Programs under the banner of universal service are the Connect America Fund for rural areas, Lifeline for low-income customers, E-rate for schools and libraries, and Rural Health Care.  
  • Deemed 27 telecommunications carriers as eligible to collectively receive millions of dollars in high cost support from the federal Universal Service Fund for maintaining, upgrading and building out their voice and broadband networks in South Dakota. The Universal Service Administration Co. estimates South Dakota carriers invested more than $73 million in USF monies in South Dakota in 2013.
  • Commissioner Chris Nelson delivered presentations to audiences at meetings of the Montana Telecommunications Association and WTA – Advocates for Rural Broadband about changes and challenges in the telecommunications arena.
  • In May, following a lengthy and complex process, granted a certificate of authority to Native American Telecom to provide local exchange and interexchange service within the Fort Thompson exchange located on the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Reservation. One of the issues presented in the case involved the jurisdiction of the PUC over Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. The PUC rejected the argument made by Sprint, an intervenor in the case, that Native American Telecom was providing VoIP services and that, therefore, the PUC did not have jurisdiction. The PUC found that "the record in this case does not support a finding that the Commission lacks jurisdiction to grant NAT a certificate of authority due to the provisioning of any voice services through IP."

RENEWABLE ENERGY

  • Compiled the annual South Dakota Renewable, Recycled and Conserved Energy Objective report for calendar year 2013 and submitted it to the state Legislature. Companies continue to invest in renewables and energy efficiency and many are on track to meet or exceed the voluntary objective of 10 percent renewable and conserved energy by 2015.
  • Commissioner Kristie Fiegen offered a presentation about renewable energy development and South Dakota's energy future to South Dakota university faculty and students of the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program.

GRAIN WAREHOUSE

  • Issued licenses to 173 entities with 312 locations and performed 405 inspections at 262 licensed facilities.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY

  • All of six investor-owned utilities now offer energy efficiency and conservation programs in their respective South Dakota service territories.  In 2014, the estimated energy savings for all IOUs were 9,812 megawatt hours of electricity and 51,419 dekatherms of natural gas. 
    • Xcel Energy:  Approved an update to Xcel's Demand Side Management plan that focuses on LED lighting incentives for commercial and industrial customers, ground source heat pump incentives for residential customers, LED and CFL lighting incentives for residential customers, direct load control of air conditioning units for C&I and residential customers, and consumer education.  Total forecasted energy savings for the 2015 plan are 6,085 megawatt hours of electricity.
    • Black Hills Power: Approved an update to the company's Energy Efficiency Solutions Program for 2014-2016 that modified the appliance recycling program to include providing rebates for both refrigerators and freezers. Residential lighting and appliance, residential whole house efficiency, and small business direct were added as new programs. Total energy savings for the three-year period is expected to be 12,304 megawatt hours of electricity.
    • NorthWestern Energy:  Approved a two-year pilot Demand Side Management Plan that includes a number of energy efficiency measures for both residential and commercial customers.
    • Otter Tail Power Co.: The company continued its Energy Efficiency Plan that was previously approved.
    • MidAmerican Energy Co.: Approved MidAmerican's Energy Efficiency Plan that provided incentives for a number of energy efficiency measures, including: residential and commercial furnace rebates, residential ground source heat pump rebates, residential appliance recycling rebates, and others. Total energy savings as a result of the program was 215.5 megawatt hours of electricity and 49,260 dekatherms of natural gas.
    • Montana-Dakota Utilities Co.: Approved the company's three-year Natural Gas Conservation Portfolio Plan for 2015-2017.  Key plan offerings include rebates for residential high-efficiency furnaces, residential programmable thermostats, commercial high efficiency furnaces, and commercial custom efficiency solutions. Total energy savings is forecasted to be 15,141 dekatherms of natural gas for the three-year period.

PIPELINE SITING, SAFETY AND INSPECTION

  • Completed 138 days of pipeline safety inspections.
  • Pipeline safety staff participated in more than 600 hours of training.
  • Promoted the Call Before You Dig program with statewide news releases for National Safe Digging Month in April and National 8/11 Day in August. Encouraged visitors to the PUC's booth at the Sioux Empire and Black Hills home shows and the Brown County and State fairs to take the One Call pledge to call 811 before any excavation activity.
  • Began processing the certification of permit docket for the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline. Because TransCanada did not begin construction on the proposed 313-mile crude oil Keystone XL Pipeline in South Dakota within four years of the permit being issued in June 2010, the company must certify to the PUC that the facility continues to meet the conditions upon which the permit was granted. An evidentiary hearing will take place in May 2015. The proposed pipeline route runs through portions of Harding, Butte, Perkins, Meade, Pennington, Haakon, Jones, Lyman and Tripp counties. The proposed project also includes seven pump stations to be located in Harding, Meade, Haakon, Jones and Tripp counties. The plans specify two pump stations each in Harding and Tripp counties.
  • Received an application from Dakota Access to construct a 272-mile crude oil pipeline in South Dakota to extend through portions of Campbell, McPherson, Edmunds, Faulk, Spink, Beadle, Kingsbury, Miner, Lake, McCook, Minnehaha, Turner and Lincoln counties and include one pump station in  Spink County. The purpose of the pipeline is to connect the Bakken and Three Forks crude oil production areas in North Dakota to existing pipeline infrastructure in Illinois. The commission must decide on the application by December 15, 2015.

LEADERSHIP

  • Commissioner Gary Hanson was voted to serve as PUC chairperson and Commissioner Chris Nelson was voted vice chairperson.

ELECTRIC

  • Continued the process to develop rules that will help define cases involving contracts for generation developers seeking to sell wholesale power as a qualified facility to a utility company. The commission will specifically consider how to handle the creation of a legally enforceable obligation (LEO) in such cases.
  • Approved in May a 43-mile 345kV transmission line to be constructed by Xcel Energy and Otter Tail Power Co. in Brookings and Deuel counties, known as the Big Stone South-Brookings County project. The line has multi-value project (MVP) status from MISO, identifying it as providing regional reliability, economic value and supporting renewable energy.
  • Hosted "EPA's 111(d) Carbon Regulation: A South Dakota Forum" in Sioux Falls to examine the impacts, implications and other issues of the EPA's proposed plan to reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants. More than 100 attendees heard from representatives of the EPA, S.D. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, South Dakota's energy providers, and regional transmission organizations about the proposed plan, compliance methods and cost, and the impact on reliability.
  • Responded to the EPA's call for comments on its Clean Power Plan by thoroughly analyzing the proposal, discussing effects with South Dakota stakeholders and submitting extensive written comments to the agency. PUC analysis of the proposed plan to regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants indicates the play may adversely impact the reliability and affordability of electricity in South Dakota if implemented as it is currently written. Published the PUC's comments and those of South Dakota energy stakeholders on the PUC website.
  • Commissioner Chris Nelson offered remarks to electricity industry leaders gathered at the Electric Power Research Institute Summer Seminar about the role of communications in distributed energy resources deployment.

  • Hosted a public input hearing in Aberdeen for Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. and Otter Tail Power Co. to construct a 345kV, 160-mile transmission line between new substations near Big Stone City, S.D., and Ellendale, N.D., crossing portions of Brown, Day and Grant counties. The proceeding in May was the third public input hearing for the project, scheduled after the applicants made some changes to the route. Approved a settlement stipulation in August allowing for construction of the project. MISO has designated the line as a multi-value project (MVP).

  • The PUC's decision granting a permit to Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. and Otter Tail Power Co. to construct a 345kV transmission line between Big Stone City, S.D., and Ellendale, N.D. was appealed in September to the Fifth Circuit Court by Gerald Pesall of Lily, S.D. The PUC decision was affirmed by the circuit court in December.

  • Commissioner Gary Hanson was a speaker and panelist at the national Roundtable on Energy Resource Portfolios for the Electric Power Industry in October where industry leaders examined the future of the electric power industry, the growing demand for diverse energy portfolios and challenges, and how to solve those challenges.

  • In November, agreed to allow Otter Tail Power Co. to recover from customers the company's cost of complying with environmental regulations at two of its coal-fired power plants near Milbank, S.D., and Fergus Falls, Minn. South Dakota customers were impacted, on average, by a 7.1 percent rate increase, referred to as an environmental cost recovery tariff, effective Dec. 1, 2014. The company expects the total rate increase to be slightly less than 12 percent when the retrofit construction is complete at the Big Stone Plant in 2015.

  • Hosted a public input hearing in August attended by nearly 100 people in Rapid City for a 45.4-mile 230kV transmission line proposed to be constructed by Black Hills Power from the Wyoming border to the company's Lange Substation near Rapid City. The commission approved construction of the line in November.
  • Completed participation in a temporary staffing program funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Since 2010, the PUC has had ARRA staff that completed assignments related to electric issues. The last ARRA staff member worked through 2014, concentrating on electric service territory boundary agreements.
  • Processed 69 electric service territory boundary agreements to verify electric territory mapping data for conversion to electronic format and use in a Geographic Information System database.
  • Continued working with counterparts from other states on the Eastern Interconnect States' Planning Council/State Provincial Steering Committee to strategize regional transmission planning and cost allocation efforts.
  • As part of the Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body, continued to provide advice to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, North American Electric Reliability Corporation and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about electric reliability issues.
  • Received and began processing applications from four investor-owned electric utilities requesting authority to increase rates:
    • Black Hills Power requested a 9.27 percent increase in March 2014.
    • Xcel Energy requested an 8.0 percent increase in June 2014.
    • MidAmerican Energy Co. requested a 13.8 percent increase in August 2014.
    • NorthWestern Energy requested a 20.24 percent increase in December 2014.
    Each rate case is thoroughly analyzed by a PUC staff team of one attorney and multiple analysts with assistance from rate consultants.
  • Processed a number of transmission cost recovery (TCR) tariff requests:
    • In February, approved a settlement agreement to update Otter Tail Power Company's TCR rider rate to reflect the 2014 recovery period and one new transmission project.
    • In April, approved Xcel Energy's request to continue recovery of the South Dakota portion of 21 transmission projects for 2014.
    • In May, approved a settlement stipulation between PUC staff and Black Hills Power to allow the company to recover costs associated with two 69 kV transmission rebuild projects.
    • In December, approved Xcel Energy's request to continue recovery of the South Dakota portion related to 14 transmission projects for 2015.
    • Received a request from Otter Tail Power Company in October for an update of its TCR rider rate to include recovery of costs in 2015 for two new transmission projects.
    Similar to a rate case, a transmission cost recovery docket is assigned to a PUC staff team comprised of an attorney and, often, multiple analysts that conducts a comprehensive analysis of the company's request.

PUBLIC OUTREACH AND CONSUMER ASSISTANCE

  • Assisted consumers on more than 1,910 occasions with issues and complaints related to electric, natural gas, telecommunications (including wireless), energy efficiency and other utility-related topics. 
  • Conducted personal consumer outreach at the Sioux Empire Home Show in Sioux Falls, Black Hills Homebuilders Show in Rapid City, Brown County Fair in Aberdeen and the South Dakota State Fair in Huron. Commissioners and staff met with more than 3,400 consumers to answer questions about utility issues and promote the Call Before You Dig program, energy efficiency, Lifeline telephone assistance program and the Do Not Call registry.
  • Helped to increase the total amount of South Dakota telephone numbers on Do Not Call registry to 632,381.
  • Commissioner Chris Nelson was a guest lecturer for Brookings eighth grade science classes. Nelson and the students discussed wind, hydro and solar applications in South Dakota.
  • Commissioner Kristie Fiegen was a guest presenter at Southeast Technical Institute, meeting with high school students from the region to discuss public policy and utility industry careers.

NATURAL GAS

  • Began processing a request received in August from MidAmerican Energy Co. to increase its natural gas rates by 3.5 percent.
  • Commissioners and staff toured sites in the Bakken Formation area and Montana-Dakota Utilities Co.'s new natural gas-fired plant at its Heskett Station in North Dakota.

WIRELESS

  • Monitored the actions and results as new wireless telecommunications sites were launched by companies at several locations including in or near Camp Crook, Custer/Crazy Horse Memorial, Gettysburg, Kadoka, Mitchell, Mission Hill, New Underwood, Plankinton, Selby and Willow Lake. Companies also made a number of technology enhancements on existing towers throughout the year.

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