The City of East Grand Forks Joins the Minnesota Municipal Power Agency

Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 23, 2004 – The City of East Grand Forks has joined the Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (MMPA), becoming the Agency’s tenth member.

"East Grand Forks believes agency membership in MMPA will provide the most cost effective means of continuing to provide reliable, reasonably priced electricity for its retail customers now and in the future," said Dan Boyce, General Manager of East Grand Forks Water and Light Department.

For East Grand Forks, the " benefits of agency membership include…access to staff experienced in and accustomed to dealing with the operational, legal and regulatory issues of power supply and transmission service, and access to the collective and shared wisdom of the power agency members, " said Boyce.

According to Boyce, procuring energy in today’s market entails many ris ks " Because of the rapid changes and increasing complexity of the electric industry, the [Water, Light, Power and Building] Commission believed the time was right to act jointly rather than continue to independently purchase power supply and transmission," he said.

MMPA welcomed East Grand Forks as a member on November 1, 2004. East Grand Forks has a peak load of approximately 27 MW and serves approximately 3,800 customers. East Grand Forks’ winter peaking load complements the summer peaking MMPA load.

Since 2000, East Grand Forks has been purchasing power as a customer of MMPA. East Grand Forks conducted a competitive process to solicit proposals for its future power supply needs. After a thorough review, the Commission decided to seek membership in MMPA. MMPA was formed in 1992 by the cities of Anoka, Arlington, Brownton, Chaska, Le Sueur, North St. Paul, Olivia, and Winthrop. East Grand Forks follows the City of Shakopee as the second city to join MMPA this year. The Agency has a 276 MW portfolio of resources supplying power to approximately 80,000 member city residents.