Here are several ways to make your voice heard!

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• Short on time but still want to chime in? Add your name to those of other Tri-State member co-op customers who want a 100% clean energy future without being saddled with the cost of new gas. Sign the petition here

  • Versión en español​

 

• Not a fan of form letters and want to use your own creative voice by submitting a custom-tailored public comment? There are various ways to make a public comment - online, written, by phone, and hopefully even live at a hearing.Here is a link to a tool kit to help get you started and to make sure your comments make it to the right place. 

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• Under 18 and more inclined to video? We have just the answer. You can add your name to a youth letter AND join in a contest to send Tri-State and the PUC your thoughts via videos by clicking here.

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In the five years since Tri-State unveiled its Responsible Energy Plan, it has made significant strides in expanding its clean energy development. In a repeat of history, the company now finds itself in strikingly similar circumstances to those in 2020. The decision facing Tri-State then was whether to continue with plans to build a proposed coal-fired power plant in Kansas that had been nearly two decades in the making. Tri-State officials for years had argued the plant was critical for meeting future demand. Ultimately, wiser minds prevailed, and the so-called Sunflower plant was never built as Tri-State switched gears and determined that renewables were the new direction it would follow. Its member co-ops, however, are still paying off the $93 million that was sunk into a project that was never built – and never truly needed.

 

As the Public Utilities Commission evaluates the options Tri-State is considering for its generation portfolio for the next 5-10 years, the same dynamic is at play. Wind, solar and battery storage now comprise the vast majority of new capacity that Tri-State is proposing. But it also has on the drawing board plans to add 290 megawatts of new capacity from fossil gas plants. Those plants would cost in the range of $300 million to $400 million to build, an expense that Tri-State’s members will be paying off for decades.

 

Given the steady decline of the cost of wind, solar and battery storage, along with the volatile price swings in the cost of gas, it makes little sense for Tri-State to even think about a resource that very easily could be uneconomical to run within the planning window considered in the ERP.

 

The only viable way forward for Tri-State – especially to avoid repeating the costly mistakes of Sunflower – is to go all in on clean energy and leave gas in the rearview mirror. Following are different ways that you can send Tri-State and the Public Utilities Commission that message.

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