COLUMBUS, Neb. – Nebraska Public Power District’s Board of Directors approved a goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions from generation resources by 2050 during last week's regularly scheduled board meeting.

NPPD said the company has been discussing decarbonization for years.

The company has worked with its wholesale customers and the communities it serves to thoughtfully develop a policy that points NPPD towards net-zero carbon in a timeframe that allows for technology to enable this change, while maintaining affordability, reliability, and system resiliency.

NPPD President and CEO Tom Kent says, “We believe it will take a variety of actions to reach this goal, from alternative fuels, energy efficiency projects, lower or zero carbon emission generation resources, carbon capture, carbon-offsets, beneficial electrification, energy storage, and other new emerging technologies that may not yet be commercially available or have yet to be developed.” 

The press release said that in the process of developing this goal, NPPD worked with external consultants to explore potential scenarios for decarbonizing its generation mix; garnered extensive feedback from wholesale customers; hosted five public information forums across the state; and received thousands of responses to a survey on the topic. 

NPPD said these all provided opportunities for education and feedback that would help NPPD’s board members develop the goal that was approved. A process that Vice President of Customer Service and Chief Customer Officer Ken Curry said took several years of work. 

“It was important to provide opportunities for our customers to share what is most important to them as we embark on our journey to net zero carbon. Decarbonization is very important, but we heard resoundingly that protecting reliability and affordability are also critically important to those we serve,” continued Curry.

The goal was approved by the board by a 9-2 vote. NPPD currently serves it’s Nebraska customers with roughly 65 percent carbon free energy resources, due in large part to Cooper Nuclear Station, in addition to hydro, wind and solar generation. 

“NPPD already sits in a great position with our diverse generation mix and we will continue to work closely with our customers as we move towards a goal of net-zero without compromising reliability and affordability,” says Kent.

NPPD serves energy to customers in 86 of Nebraska’s 93 counties, including more than 92,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in 79 Nebraska communities. NPPD also has wholesale power supply agreements with 38 municipalities and 23 rural public power districts and/or cooperatives. More information and resources can be found at https://www.nppd.com/powering-nebraska/powering-our-future.