Black Hills Corporation (NYSE:BKH) announced that its Black Hills Energy electric utility subsidiaries in South Dakota and Wyoming have requested to the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission (SDPUC) and Wyoming Public Service Commission (WPSC) for approval of renewable energy tariffs program. The program will enable the company to cater to electricity requirements of large commercial and industrial customers as well as governmental agencies with a cost- effective option and will provide feasible contract option of 5-25 years.
The subsidiaries jointly filed a request to WPSC to construct a new $57-million wind generation project — Corriedale Wind Energy — near Cheyenne, WY. If approved, the 40 megawatt (MW) wind project will be in service from 2020.
Other Wind Projects
Black Hills is focusing on cost effective, high potential wind projects to generate electricity. The company is involved in building and making strategic acquisitions to expand wind power generation portfolio. A wind generating project named Peak View Wind Project came into service in 2017 to serve 94,000 customers in Southern (NYSE:SO) Colorado with a capacity 60 MW.
Recently, by purchasing 50% ownership interest of Busch Ranch I Wind Farm, the company became the sole owner of that same firm. Black Hills Electric Generation is also constructing Busch Ranch II wind project with 60 MW capacities in an adjacent location to Busch Ranch I Wind, which is expected to be complete by the end of 2019. All these project expansions indicate the company’s intension to increase renewable focus.
Capital Investment Plans
Under its five years capital investment plan for 2018-2022, Black Hills will invest $0.8 million toward electric utilities. The company intends to spend 22% of the projected amount in Wyoming and 48% in South Dakota. The company plans to spend a total amount of $2.54 billion through 2018-2022.
With increasing environmental awareness, a tendency to replace fossil fuel energy generation sources with renewable is visible. We believe that investment in renewable energy generation sources will aid the utility electric companies in the long run.
Other electric utility companies like NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE) , The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES) and Ameren Crop (NYSE:AEE) are also investing on renewable energy sources to lower emission levels from their generation assets.
Zacks Rank & Price Movement
Black Hills currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
In the past 12 months, shares of the company have gained 8.5% compared with the industry’s decline of 1.8%.
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