NPPD’s Wholesale Electric Rates Remain Among Lowest in Nation

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
August 12, 2023

Nebraska Public Power District’s wholesale electric rates have once again ranked amongst the lowest in the country compared to roughly 800 wholesale electric providers, the public power utility reported on Aug. 11.

Several years ago, NPPD wanted to benchmark its wholesale rate against others in the nation as well as show how NPPD’s rates compares to its peers.

To do this, NPPD established a goal of being in the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation’s first quartile — below the 25-percentile mark, which would indicate NPPD’s wholesale rate is among the lowest of peer wholesale utility rates.

In 2020 NPPD met the goal by finishing at the 23.2 percentile, then in 2021 improved to the 12.4 percentile, and now that the data for 2022 has been finalized NPPD’s rank improved further, finishing at the 11.7 percentile.  

“Achieving and improving on this goal for three straight years is thanks to our staff’s commitment to put customers first,” said NPPD President and CEO Tom Kent. “Our team has done a great job at focusing on cost control and outstanding operational performance within our plants and throughout our transmission and distribution system. All essential in our goal to continue providing affordable, reliable, resilient, and sustainable power to our customers.”

NPPD’s wholesale rates have remained steady for six straight years, and as a not-for-profit public corporation, NPPD is able to share surpluses with customers in the form of production credit adjustments, it noted.

NPPD has wholesale contracts with 37 municipalities and 23 rural public power districts and rural cooperatives across the state.