Are You Positioned for Where the Energy Market Is Going – Or Where It’s Been?
The Western energy market is shifting:
- Demand is accelerating
- Infrastructure is lagging
- Location strategy now determines project success
So ask yourself:
Are you building in markets that are already constrained… or entering markets where you can help define capacity?
Great Falls offers a different kind of opportunity:
- Clear infrastructure gaps to solve
- Existing energy production
- Proven project success
“Energy is the only universal currency. One of its many forms must be transformed to get anything done. “
-Vaclav Smil
The national energy ecosystem is undergoing a structural shift driven by demand growth, changing regulatory and market frameworks, as well as an emphasis on domestic energy security.
Compounding these dynamics is the reality of aging infrastructure and increasing expectations for reliability. Much of the electrical grid was built for a different era and now faces significant capacity and interconnection constraints. Natural gas systems have similar limitations, with significant portions of the existing framework experiencing mechanical and contractual bottlenecks.
Despite being a relatively small state in terms of population, Montana has consistently operated as a net producer, exporter, and enabler of energy systems at scale. In the early 1900’s, copper ore mined in Butte was transported to Great Falls and smelted. Both the smelter and the mines were powered by Great Falls’ abundant hydropower.
This system represents one of the earliest examples of large scale energy generation and advanced industrial demand coordination in the United States, including one of the nation’s first long distance electric transmission lines connecting Great Falls to Butte.
The direct connection between energy generation and end user demand made Great Falls the industrial heartland of Montana and established a foundation that continues to shape North Central Montana’s next generation energy evolution.
With an exceptional natural resource base and large tracts of developable land, North Central Montana offers utility scale generation and industrial siting opportunities not available in more congested areas. The region sits within one of the strongest onshore wind corridors in North America and provides meaningful solar resources along with strategic access to major natural gas supply basins. Emerging baseload technologies such as enhanced geothermal may be viable in the region.
Montana is uniquely situated between the Western Interconnection and Eastern Interconnection of the grid and shares cross border transmission pathways into Canadian markets.
As demand for reliable, scalable power continues to grow, North Central Montana is poised to serve once again as both a generation hub and an energy transit corridor.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy
The Montana Alberta Tie Line (MATL) is a 230 kilovolt (kV) transmission line connecting the Montana electrical grid at Great Falls and the Alberta electrical grid at Lethbridge, Alberta. The MATL operates as an unregulated investment, fully funded by its owners, so there is no cost to ratepayers for the operation of MATL.
The MATL is 345 kilometers long and has a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) with the potential to further increase the available capacity. Since going into service in 2013, MATL has played an essential role in improving reliability of service for both the Alberta and Montana markets. Since 2020, the in service availability of the bidirectional line has exceeded 97 percent.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE) Canada owns the Canadian portion and manages the daily operations, while BHE U.S. Transmission owns the portion of the line in the United States.
The energy generation and storage facilities connected to MATL are owned and operated by BHE Montana.
BHE Montana owns and operates 397.5 MW of wind generation, 75 MW of battery storage, and is planning a 130 MW solar farm for deployment in early 2027. The recent 75 MW of storage represents a $100 million dollar investment and provides critical grid support and reliability enhancement throughout the region. BHE built a 24/7 operations center to manage generation balancing from its renewable assets. BHE invested $1.4 million dollars in Great Falls College MSU to develop a first of is kind North American Reliability Corporation (NERC) certified training program.
BHE will join the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) in 2026, enabling real time balancing of electrical generation supply and demand. WEIM allows participating utilities and balancing authorities across the western United States to buy and sell power every five minutes. This enables the grid to automatically dispatch the lowest cost energy available across a vast geographic footprint, improving both economic efficiency and grid reliability.
Montana Renewables
Montana Renewables (MRL) is a leading producer of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) in North America, with an annual production capacity of around 30 million gallons. As SAF demand continues to grow, MRL has a planned expansion to increase production up to 300 million gallons by 2028. The plant expansion in Great Falls was made possible by a Department of Energy loan guarantee of $1.67 billion dollars.
MRL is pioneering the renewable fuels industry. Their team of experts is developing patent pending technology for green hydrogen use in their conversion process to further lower the processing carbon footprint. SAF production process can use feedstocks such as used cooking oil, camelina oil, canola oil, tallow, distillers corn oil, and soybean oil. Today, MRL is producing enough SAF to fuel 40,000 flight hours, helping the global aviation sector meet its sustainability goals.
The MRL location in Great Falls is in the heart rich renewable feedstocks, ideal for receiving and delivering renewable products to market in the Northwest United States and Canada.
North Plains Connector
The Eastern Interconnection, Western Interconnection, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) comprise the national power grid. These three systems operate largely independent of one another with insufficient connections between them. With energy demand increasing, the fractured grid is an impediment to ensuring energy reliability and security nationwide.
The North Plains Connector is a 420 mile, 525 kilovolt, high voltage direct current transmission line connecting the eastern and western U.S. electric grids in North Dakota and Montana. North Plains Connector will transport electrical power of all generation sources and bidirectionally move power along the line in response to demand.
The North Plains Connector will extend between an existing substation in Colstrip, Montana, to two separate connections in North Dakota – one near the town of Center, and the other near St. Anthony
The North Plains Connector is in the permitting and regulatory filing phase with approvals expected in 2026. Major construction activities are expected to commence in 2028, and the line is expected to be operational in 2032.
The North Plains Connector represents a $6 billion dollar investment in Montana and North Dakota and will be a long term asset for the states. The project will improve grid resiliency and provide economic benefits through local tax revenue, landowner payments, and job creation.
This high capacity, bidirectional transmission line will improve the reliability and resiliency of the electrical grid across the region and broaden market connections. The project will also provide electricity for consumers when they need more power, and access to additional sources of power during extreme weather events.
View the 2024 Great Falls trade area energy market assessment reports below.
