Power you can count on

We continue our investments in grid reliability to provide affordable electricity you can count on.

“Our commitment to providing low-cost, reliable service throughout our rural area involves a combination of efforts,” said System Infrastructure and Reliability Manager Michael Riewer. "We're planning the future of our generation mix, making improvements to our delivery system, and investing in new transmission projects and technology, all to maintain excellent service for every customer."

Creating a resilient transmission grid

Investments totaling more than $300 million over the last decade have focused on innovative and resourceful ways to create a more resilient regional transmission grid. In addition, improvements such as regulator and recloser changeouts as well as pole and underground conductor replacements are critical to maintaining a reliable delivery system. We’re also proactively repairing substation assets identified as potential concerns. And instead of obtaining new, costly devices, when possible our repair shop technicians make needed repairs themselves, which keep costs down—helping us maintain residential rates among the lowest in the nation.

Keeping our communities connected

Some of our recent improvement projects have enhanced service in St. Michael, McVille, Wabek/Plaza, and Knox, North Dakota; Revillo, South Dakota; and Garfield and Brooks, Minnesota. And we have significant improvements planned in and around the Otter Tail Lake area, Bemidji, Fergus Falls, Morris/Cyrus, Nashua/Tintah, Mahnomen, and Crookston, Minnesota; Michigan, Oakes, Cooperstown, Jamestown, McClusky, Underwood, Enderlin, Hensel, Fingal, and Hamberg, North Dakota; and Ivanhoe, Lake Norden, Summit, and Lake City, South Dakota.

We’re also making investments in large substation projects over the next few years at Erie and Norcross, Minnesota; Jamestown, North Dakota; and New Effington and Toronto, South Dakota. These substation projects improve reliability to subsequent area transmission systems and in turn many customers in the surrounding regions. 

Areas with improvement projects are shown in green; areas with substation projects are shown in orange.

Maintaining excellent service

If there are interruptions in service, we work quickly and safely to restore power. “We’re investing in new technology to help with outage restoration, including reviewing new electronic controls to remotely understand substation performance and developing new methods of overall visibility to help get customers connected again faster,” said Riewer.

Learn more about how we’re modernizing our energy grid at otpsustainability.com.