By Evelyn Pyburn
The community of Colstrip is enthusiastic about NorthWestern Energy assuming ownership of the interests in the Colstrip plants held by Puget Sound and Avista. Especially about the fact that the company will hold 55 percent ownership of the power generating facility, which many in the community believe spells a bright future for Colstrip.
Given news of the possible forced closures of the power generators, many recent reports have portrayed Colstrip as something of a forlorn and dejected community, with residents scrambling to be the first out the door in anticipation of economic doom, but people attending the Southeastern Montana Development Corporation’s annual Energy Open Conference were not that at all. They were very upbeat.
The reason was most clearly stated by Brian Bird, CEO of NorthWestern Energy (NWE) who said he doesn’t think of Colstrip as a “coal town” but as an “energy town”. Bird’s comments made it clear that NWE has no intentions of reducing operations at Colstrip but plan to accelerate them as they transition to the future of the industry. He said, Colstrip “is where I think that transition is going to occur.”
Bird’s message follows recent reports, not only of NorthWestern Energy acquiring a majority interest in the Colstrip plants, but also the significant news that Montana received a $700 million grant to help extend a 525-kilovolt line electric transmission grid, to the east and the west. The lack of transmission lines in Montana has for decades encumbered the efficiency of its energy system.
The U.S. Department of Energy grant will aid in building the $3.6 billion North Plains Connector, a 415-mile, high voltage, direct-current line between the Colstrip substation and Center, North Dakota, which will allow power to move from Portland to Minnesota, and serve 20 states.
Because of the expanded transmission, Bird said, NWE plans to build new substations.
News also recently broke that as of Jan. 1, 2026, NorthWestern Energy will acquire, at no cost, Puget Sound Energy’s 370 megawatt share of the Colstrip Plant, which will join their earlier announced acquisition of Avista’s 222 megawatts, also at no cost and at the beginning 2026.
From Bird’s perspective there is no doubt about the future of Colstrip as being a vital energy hub for the state. NorthWestern Energy is building in Colstrip because “someday common sense is going to return to the United States… when that happens we are already going to be there.”
Bird said, “We will retire the coal plants when they are no longer cost effective.” And he made clear that they intend to move in that direction while pursuing their goal of being at “net zero“ in terms of carbon emissions by 2050.
Much of the current focus is exploring the feasibility of using modular nuclear units as a means of generating energy – that is the future of energy generation in the US, according to Bird and others at the conference. If that is not possible in a timely way, Bird said they would build another natural gas powered plant like the Yellowstone County Generating Station the company recently completed in Laurel.
Bird said that 133 natural gas plants are being built in the United States today. “That number will double in the next ten years,” he said. And, it will do so because it is the cleanest fossil fuel.
What is uncertain about the nuclear modular units are issues of cost and permitting time. It may be possible to get a federal grant, as Bill Gates did in building Naughton Power Plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming. And over time, the permitting process will get better, but whether those things will evolve quickly enough to meet the needs of NorthWestern Energy’s customers is yet to be seen.
Bird further commented, “We care a tremendous amount to transition to a cleaner future, but we want to do it smart and we need to do it over time.”
“Over the past twenty years we have been too pensive waiting for someone to tell us what to do. Not anymore. We are going to do what we need to do for our customers. I care about the wellbeing of customers, right now – not ten, twenty or thirty years from now.
Bird emphasized that it is NWE duty to be concerned about serving people in Montana today. ”I will take some heat from environmental communities more than I want all of you in this room and everybody in Montana ticked off, because we can’t serve you.”
“I worry about this country, not just Montana. We have a capacity problem. We worry about the health of customers, 20 or 30 years out, more than we worry about them today. And we don’t worry about the cost of serving customers, because if you don’t have capacity and you have to go procure power it is going to get expensive,” said Bird. He added, “We are going to see blackouts in this country.”
North American Electric Reliability Corporation has predicted as much, especially so for the western half of the United States. Wind and solar does not address that problem because they don’t have “capacity.”
“If we can have excess capacity, we are less apt to have these problems.”
Last January, said Bird, “We were close to not being able to serve our customers. I would love to have had the incremental Colstrip. .. I wouldn’t have had to go buy power in the market place for a thousand bucks a megawatt.”
He also emphasized that when they do have to buy from the market, it is for energy that has been generated by coal.
How well a utility company does depends on how well they manage three aspects of business: liability, affordability and sustainability. “Those are the three most important things for a utility to focus on and balance,” said Bird.
“We not only want to be able to serve our customers inexpensively but to have excess capacity to allow the state to grow.” He pointed out that the Governor is trying to bring new business to Montana and “we don’t have the power to serve growth.”
Bird also said that claims that wind and solar are cheaper than fossil fuels are “right.” The energy is cheaper, he said, but what they aren’t right on is capacity.
“By the way, we love excess wind energy, We can sell it on the market place and give the money back to our customers.” Also, “we can buy excess solar energy from California, during the day, cheap, and we can actually reduce costs for our customers.”
But those sources do not have capacity, which is “a resource that you can turn on and off and run for as long as you want. It is called duration. You can flick a switch and have energy. You can’t flick a switch for solar. You can’t flick a switch for wind. But I can flick a switch for Colstrip and our gas plant at Yellowstone County.”
“So don’t get fooled by ‘wind and solar is cheaper than fossil fuels.’ It is for electricity but not for capacity.”
The natural gas fired Yellowstone County Generating Station, “was built as a partner with renewables…it is the perfect plant to offset renewables.”
Almost every day NWE has excess energy. “We are long energy, short capacity.”
Demand growth for electricity over the past 20 years has been flat, according to Bird. It has grown by about one percent.
“That is going to change in the United States.” Both, Elon Musk and Bill Gates believe that demand for electricity in the future will be two -and -a -half to three times higher than it is today. “Should we be closing dispatchable, long –duration resources …until we have resources for the future?” questioned Bird.
Bird predicted that to achieve the next 40 percent of “carbon free” emissions will be much harder than the first 60 percent. It’s going to be “really, really tough…but you don’t tear down the old bridge until you build a new bridge.”
“Soon we will begin to hear terms like ‘energy reality,’” predicted Bird, because “when people die, reality is going to show up in an instant.”
Bird said that hydro is his favorite resource because it is clean and has good capacity, but we need all of our resources. “We have to have ‘all of the above resources’ to serve our customers and we will gladly take our neighbor’s ownership interest for zero capital cost. … when this plant was built we all had similar objectives. Politics today has changed those objectives and those changed objectives of the West have been a benefit to us and our customers.”
“Do you think those two companies wanted to give us those pieces for zero?” queried Bird, “No. They didn’t. Their states are making them get out of coal by 2025….one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. We will gladly take their interests in Colstrip.”
Bird explained that even if they have to build a bag house, which is a proposed mandate that the Environment Protection Agency may impose, costs that will be less than have to build new generation.
“If we invested $200 million to maintain the plant and $200 million in a bag house – that compares to a cost of $1.6 billion for a 30 megawatt gas plant at current prices.”
Bird said that NWE has been criticized for not having a shorter time frame to their “net zero goal.” “They have asked us to change it to 2035 or 2040. One skiing community has a goal of net zero by 2030 and wanted us to change. But I don’t believe that because they get their power from NWE.”
He also explained that getting the Colstrip pieces, while a huge benefit to customers, aren’t seen as such by investors. Investors make money on investments. Getting something for zero is no means of getting a return on investment.
Bird had a few critical remarks regarding Montana media.
He asked the audience how many knew that Northwest Energy is the second best in energy transition in the United States from an investor owned facility perspective. “The media hasn’t told you that?” he asked with mock incredulity. “I can’t believe it.” NWE is second to Idacorp, Inc. which has significant hydro generation.
Bird pointed out that typically Montana media attempts to imply that NorthWestern Energy is not a Montana business. They emphasize that the company is headquartered in South Dakota. He explained that NorthWestern Energy is a South Dakota – Montana – Nebraska company which gained ownership of Montana Power 25 years ago and, today, 90 percent of the company’s business is in Montana.
“We are going to be here a long time,” said Bird.
