Otter Tail Corporation is an
energy company
The energy industry is the totality of all of the industries involved in the production and sale of energy, including fuel extraction, manufacturing, refining and distribution. Modern society consumes large amounts of fuel, and the energy indust ...
based in
Fergus Falls
Fergus Falls is a city in and the county seat of Otter Tail County, Minnesota, Otter Tail County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 14,119 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census.
History
The falls from which the city gets par ...
,
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
. Its main subsidiary is the Otter Tail Power Company.
As of 2007, Otter Tail Power Company serves at least 423 towns at retail and delivers power to about 14 municipal utilities. The company currently has a workforce of over 750 employees, a generating capacity of 660
megawatts
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Watt ...
, and owns over of electrical power transmission lines (the majority of which are operated at 41.6 kV). The company serves 128,500 customers in
North Dakota
North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...
,
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
, and
South Dakota
South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...
.
History
![Otter Tail Power Company](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Otter_Tail_Power_Company.jpg)
The company was incorporated in 1907 when funds were secured to begin construction of the Dayton Hollow Dam southwest of Fergus Falls. Once the dam came online in April 1909, the company transmitted power at 22 kV over a line to serve the customers of the Northern Light Electric Company at
Wahpeton,
North Dakota
North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...
.
Shortly thereafter, contracts were secured to provide power at wholesale to the cities of
Breckenridge and
Fergus Falls, MN (the latter after their own municipal utility's dam failed). After connecting
Foxhome, MN, to the system in 1912, the company connected or purchased electric distribution systems in 10 Minnesota towns (the most prominent being Elbow Lake and Morris, MN) and a second town in North Dakota (Fairmount) the following year. Northern Light Electric also merged with Otter Tail at this time and its owner came on board as the company's first general manager. The first South Dakota community served by the company was White Rock in 1915. By 1920, the company was serving approximately 44 towns, all but a handful of which were in or near Otter Tail County. However, the company quickly found its Minnesota service area hemmed in by neighboring utility companies that were also rushing to add territory. This led to the company expanding westward into and across much of eastern North Dakota, reaching
Jamestown, ND
Jamestown is a city in Stutsman County, North Dakota, Stutsman County, North Dakota, United States. It is the county seat of Stutsman County. The population was 15,849 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities i ...
by 1924 (the company was serving over 100 towns by this time). The company grew at an incredible rate over the next 5 years—reaching the
Missouri River at Washburn in 1926 and approaching the Canada–US border by 1928. By the end of the 1920s, the company's service area had tripled to serve more than 310 towns. During the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, the company was apparently not as badly affected as some of its neighbors but was still forced to focus more on survival than growth. By 1939, the worst was past, and they were ready to move forward once more.
Between 1940 and 1944, Otter Tail added territory by merger or acquisition of 6 smaller power companies within or adjacent to its territory (almost all of who had corporate parents that were required to divest these properties due to passage of the
Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935
The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA), also known as the Wheeler-Rayburn Act, was a US federal law giving the Securities and Exchange Commission authority to regulate, license, and break up electric utility holding companies. It l ...
). These purchases increased its territory to its present size of , about the same size as the state of
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
. The one exception in this territory is the Red River Valley between Grand Forks and Fargo, ND, which was then and still is served by
Northern States Power Company
Northern States Power Company () was a publicly traded S&P 500 electric and natural gas utility holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that is now a subsidiary of Xcel Energy ().
History
The company's founder, Henry Marison Byllesby, ha ...
(now
Xcel Energy
Xcel Energy Inc. is an American utility holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving more than 3.7 million electric customers and 2.1 million natural gas customers in Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico in 2019. It consists of four oper ...
).
After the final major acquisition in 1944, the company had reached its 'maximum system' of 496 towns served at both retail and wholesale. As the company matured over the next several decades, the number of towns served within the region would shrink (mainly due to towns served at wholesale changing suppliers and some smaller retail towns dying out). A few towns were added between 1944 and 1968—the largest being the purchase of Fergus Falls' municipal utility in 1953 and the last addition being the transfer of several towns in
Polk County, Minnesota
Polk County is a county in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Its population was 31,192 at the 2020 census. Its county seat is Crookston, and the largest community is East Grand Forks.
Polk County is part of the Grand Fork ...
, from Northern States Power Company when the 34.5 kV transmission line serving these towns approached its load limit.
A merger with
Montana-Dakota Utilities was briefly explored in the late 1960s but was soon dropped due to all the regulatory hurdles involved. By the 1990s, flat revenues from the utility operations led the company to establish a subsidiary (Varistar) to acquire and oversee non-utility businesses. In 2001, the company changed its name to Otter Tail Corporation with the utility becoming a division within the company. In late 2008, the company completed a reorganization to realign the utility operations into a subsidiary within Otter Tail Corporation.
Hydropower
![Otter Tail River dam - Fergus Falls 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Otter_Tail_River_dam_-_Fergus_Falls_01.jpg)
In the beginning, Otter Tail Power built a series of hydroelectric plants to provide power for its system and these served the company well until its expansion in the 1920s outstripped the dams' capacity (steam provided the bulk of the company's power needs from then on). The company has grown to such a point that today only about 1% of the company's needs still comes from hydropower. The dams are: Dayton Hollow (1909 - southwest of Fergus Falls), Hoot Lake (1914 / 1918 - east Fergus Falls), Pisgah (1918 - west Fergus Falls), Wright (rebuilt 1922 - downtown Fergus Falls), Taplin Gorge (1925 - northeast of Fergus Falls), and Bemidji (built early 1900s / purchased in 1944). Hoot Lake is unique in that the dam also forms the water intake for the coal-fired power plant nearby. Taplin Gorge's powerhouse is unique in that it was modeled after the
Mausoleum of Theodoric
The Mausoleum of Theodoric ( it, Mausoleo di Teodorico) is an ancient monument just outside Ravenna, Italy. It was built in 520 AD by Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, as his future tomb.
Description
The mausoleum's current structure ...
at Ravenna, Italy.
Coal-fired plants
After the company's load exceeded the capacity of its dams, the company then switched to coal to meet its energy requirements. A number of plants were added to its system in the 1920s, starting with Hoot Lake in 1921. The most important one was built near Washburn, ND in 1926, as it was one of the earliest large-scale plants to burn lignite exclusively. The company then added several more plants across the system in the late 1940s to meet the huge surge in demand after WWII, but when the company's Big Stone plant was completed in 1974, all of these smaller plants were retired and removed. The company completed its Coyote plant in 1981, after which another of the company's earlier plants (at Ortonville, MN) was removed. The Hoot Lake plant was the last of the company's early plants and the last that was 100% owned by the company. The plant began as an extension of the Hoot Lake hydro plant, with additions built in 1921, 1923, 1937, 1948, 1959, and 1964. The earlier steam additions were retired and shelled out decades ago, but the 1948 addition was retired in 2005 (it had been designated Unit 1 by then), and the 1959 and 1964 additions were retired in 2021 (and were designated Units 2 and 3), with removal currently underway as of 2022. These last units were retired both due to age and as part of Minnesota's commitment to moving away from reliable baseload generation to "green" sources of energy.
Wind power
Otter Tail Power Company currently owns 138 MW of wind generation, and purchases an additional 45 MW for a total of 183 MW of
wind power
Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to electricity generation, generate electricity. Wind power is a popular, sustainable energy, sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller Environmental impact of wi ...
. By 2010 wind generation on the system was expected to be equivalent to 18 percent of retail sales.
[ ] Owned wind resources and
power purchase agreements
A power purchase agreement (PPA), or electricity power agreement, is a contract between two parties, one which generates electricity (the seller) and one which is looking to purchase electricity (the buyer). The PPA defines all of the commercial te ...
for Otter Tail Power Company include: Luverne Wind Farm, Ashtabula Wind Energy Center, Langdon Wind Energy Center, and North Dakota Wind II.
See also
*
List of United States electric companies
The following page lists electric utilities in the United States.
Largest utilities by revenue (2022)
Reference:
List of US electric companies by state
Alabama
Alabama Municipal Electric AuthorityAlbertville Municipal Utilities Board
Arab ...
External links
Ottertail Power's websiteOtter Tail Corporation website
Sources
* The Power People: The Story of Otter Tail Power Company (Ralph Johnson, 1986)
References
{{Authority control
Electric power companies of the United States
Companies based in Minnesota
Hydroelectric power companies of the United States
Companies listed on the Nasdaq
Fergus Falls, Minnesota