Otter Tail Power Company

Otter Tail Power Company (nasdaq|OTTR) is an energy company based in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. It is the main subsidiary of the Otter Tail Corporation, which is traded on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol OTTR. Otter Tail Corporation is a small-scale conglomerate formed in the 1990s to offset the flat revenues from the utility operations. [cite web|url=http://www.otpco.com/AboutCompany/CompanyHistory.asp|title=Otter Tail Power Company history|publisher=Otter Tail Power Company|accessdate=2007-07-27]

As of 2007, the company serves 423 towns at retail and delivers power to about 14 municipal utilities. The company currently has a workforce of over 750 employees, a generating capacity of 660 megawatts, and owns over 5000 miles of electrical power transmission lines (the majority of which are operated at 41.6kV). The company serves 128,500 customers in North Dakota, Minnesota, and South Dakota.

History

The company was incorporated in 1907 when funds were secured to begin construction of the Dayton Hollow Dam southwest of Fergus Falls. Once the dam came online in April 1909, the company transmitted power over a 25-mile low-voltage line to serve the customers of the Northern Light Electric Company at Wahpeton, North Dakota.

Shortly thereafter, contracts were secured to provide power at wholesale to the cities of Breckenridge and Fergus Falls, MN (the latter after their own dam failed). After connecting Foxhome, MN to the system in 1912, the company connected or purchased electric distribution systems in 11 towns (the most prominent being Elbow Lake and Morris, MN) the following year. The company slowly grew to more than 100 towns served by the time the company reached Jamestown, ND in 1924. The company grew at an incredible rate over the next 5 years - reaching the Missouri River at Washburn in 1926 and approaching the Canadian border by 1928. By the end of 1929, the company's service area had tripled to serve more than 310 towns. During the Great Depression, the company was apparently not as badly affected as some of its neighbors but was still forced to focus more on survival than growth. By 1939, the worst was past and they were ready to move forward once more.

Between 1940 and 1944, Otter Tail acquired 6 smaller power companies within or adjacent to its territory (these acquisitions were all either companies that barely survived the Depression or were required due to passage of PUHCA in 1935). These purchases increased its territory to its present size of 50,000 square miles - about the same size as the state of Wisconsin. The one exception in this territory is the Red River Valley between Grand Forks and Fargo, ND - which was then and still is served by Northern States Power Company (now Xcel Energy).

After the final major acquisition in 1944, the company had reached its 'maximum system' of 496 towns served at both retail and wholesale. As the company matured over the next several decades, the number of towns served within the region would shrink (mainly due to towns served at wholesale changing suppliers and some smaller retail towns dying out). A few towns were added between 1944 and 1968, the last few towns (in Polk County, MN) being transferred from Northern States Power.

As of 2008, Otter Tail Corporation is in the process of obtaining permission to reorganize the utility operations from a division within the Corporation to a true subsidiary in order to properly isolate the regulated utility operations from the non-regulated subsidiaries.

ee also

*List of United States electric companies

External links

* [http://www.otpco.com/ Ottertail Power's website]
* [http://www.ottertail.com/ Otter Tail Corporation website]

References