NorthWestern Energy approved to provide natural gas in Sioux Falls

March 4, 2021

NorthWestern Corp. is a $3 billion company.

It provides natural gas and electricity to more than 700,000 customers in South Dakota, Montana and Nebraska.

It’s a 1,500-person organization with its corporate headquarters in Sioux Falls.

But it’s never been able to provide natural gas in the city itself, until now.

“We were pretty excited by the opportunity to finally serve the community with gas,” said Paul Mantz, key account and economic development specialist.

“One of the main reasons we wanted to do it is Sioux Falls is growing, but we have infrastructure already in place, and Sioux Falls is going to grow right over where we’re at. So we thought it was a good time to reach out and do that to serve customers in the city limits.”

NorthWestern began inching closer to Sioux Falls several years ago after serving an ethanol plant near Marion.

“We had some excess natural gas capacity available on that line a few years back, so we built up some infrastructure into rural southern Sioux Falls, and from there, we started picking up some of the more rural developments that were previously propane customers,” Mantz said.

In 2019, NorthWestern received a franchise agreement to begin serving customers in Harrisburg and Tea. It now has about 800 business and residential customers in those communities, Mantz said.

“We’re going after new developments,” he said. “We’re not building where there’s an existing natural gas provider.”

One of the utility’s main lines is on 271st Street south of Sioux Falls. The Sioux Falls City Council recently approved a franchise agreement to allow it to operate in the city limits.

“That’s been our main line that stretches by the Tea interstate exit with some of the commercial buildings and then east to the Iowa border,” Mantz said. “We’re going to Lake Alvin this year. Certainly, most of our growth is going to come from Harrisburg and Tea, but we’ve started going north into some of the developments that are in Sioux Falls.”

As Veterans Parkway continues to build out to the south and west, “that’s certainly going to impact the number of areas we’re going into,” he added.

“It’s going to depend on which developers we’re working with, but we’re certainly willing to go basically anywhere in Sioux Falls where we can find a developer to work with.”

NorthWestern has about 45 corporate employees in is office on 69th Street east of Louise Avenue. That includes the company’s president, who also serves as chief operating officer, the vice president/chief financial officer and the vice president of human resources, customer care and communications.

Many financial, HR and legal business operations are done out of Sioux Falls.

“If you look back, the last 25 to 30 years of NorthWestern Energy, we’ve had an office presence in Sioux Falls,” said Tom Glanzer, manager of community relations.

“People know NorthWestern Energy may not have operations in Sioux Falls yet, but we’ve been very active on the volunteer front, very active in charitable donations and advertising and things of that nature, so we’re definitely part of the Sioux Falls community without serving any customers. And we’re obviously a visionary business that wants to grow with our customers and make things possible for Sioux Falls, Harrisburg, Tea, that whole region.”

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NorthWestern Energy approved to provide natural gas in Sioux Falls

After years of being headquartered here, NorthWestern Energy will begin providing natural gas service in Sioux Falls.

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