Investing in our South Dakota energy system
At Black Hills Energy, we’re not just providing power today; we’re actively preparing to provide safe and reliable energy for years to come. In South Dakota, we’re upgrading infrastructure, building redundancy and enhancing safety so homes and businesses stay powered both day and night.
From Spearfish to Edgemont and everywhere in between, our teams are modernizing substations, rebuilding critical lines and conducting pole replacements. These investments reduce outages, shorten restoration times and add safeguards that protect both people and equipment.
The investments we make in our system focus on:
- Strengthening reliability
- Enhancing safety
- Preparing for changing conditions
- Supporting the moments that matter, every day
We’re hard at work, making smart investments to keep South Dakota safely powered for generations to come.
Current projects
Preparing for the future
We're developing the Lange II Generating Station — a new 99-megawatt natural gas-fired electric generation facility in Rapid City, South Dakota. This facility is designed to meet the growing energy demands of our customers in South Dakota and eastern Wyoming from the upcoming retirement of older units. It will feature six dual-fuel Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines (RICE) that can operate on both natural gas and diesel, giving us the flexibility to reliably serve our customers under a range of conditions.
Frequently asked questions
Why invest in substations and lines most people never see?
These are the backbone of reliable service. Upgrades like microprocessor relays, breaker replacements and line rebuilds prevent outages and speed up restoration when something does go wrong.
How do these projects help during major outages?
The RICE engines at Lange II are designed to start up quickly and deliver power right when it’s needed most — especially during times of high demand. They’ll run primarily on natural gas, which supports our efforts to reduce emissions and helps us use more renewable energy efficiently. This makes our power grid more reliable and more sustainable.
What is dispatchable power?
Dispatchable power is electricity that can be turned on or off, or adjusted up or down, whenever it's needed.
Think of it like a faucet: you can open it to let more water flow, close it to stop the flow, or adjust it to get just the right amount. Electricity demand goes up and down throughout the day — we typically use more in the morning and evening, and less at night.
Dispatchable power helps fill those gaps and keeps the lights on.
Examples of dispatchable power sources include:
- Natural gas plants
- Hydropower
- Coal plants
- Battery storage