Open Power Plant Siting: The Pioneering (and Successful) Experience of Northern States Power

One of the was Earl Ewald, Chairman of the Board of the Northern States Power Company (NSP) of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Plant siting had become an increasingly expensive process, not only in terms of direct pecuniary costs resulting from litigation, delay, and uncertainty, but also in that confrontations had significantly drained the reservoir of goodwill which NSP had built up over the previous decades. With the formation of the Task Force, NSP embarked on an experiment in non-conventional outreach which would ultimately lead, in matters of facility siting, to an ongoing commitment to citizen participation as a principle of corporate operation. Plant siting had become an increasingly expensive process, not only in terms of direct pecuniary costs resulting from litigation, delay, and uncertainty, but also in that confrontations had significantly drained the reservoir of goodwill which NSP had built up over the previous decades.