Minnesota Power strives to have access to a diverse mix of energy producing technologies and fuels to ensure that we provide our customers with a reliable supply of electric energy at reasonable cost. Energy supply diversity is important to reliability, as a hedge against the possibility of technical failure or limitations on a particular fuel supply.

Minnesota Power has a history of providing its customers highly reliable electric service at very reasonable prices while owning predominately hydroelectric and coal-fired generating facilities. In addition, Minnesota Power's customers benefit from the utility's membership in the Mid-Continent Area Power Pool (MAPP). Covering all or parts of eight states and two Canadian provinces, MAPP brings its members a higher level of reliability at lower cost than any single member can achieve on its own.

Minnesota Power is the largest hydroelectric generation owner in the state, supplying about 8% of our customers' electric energy requirements from this local renewable resource.

The majority of our customers' electric energy requirements are currently provided from coal-fired facilities. Coal is a low-cost domestic resource of almost unlimited supply used to produce electricity using proven dependable technologies. Therefore, efforts to prematurely retire these facilities will have a detrimental impact on both supply reliability and affordability. As long as our coal-fired generating plants can continue to cost-effectively produce electric energy while in compliance with environmental permits, Minnesota Power intends to keep them operating.

In addition to coal-fired and hydroelectric facilities, our current generation portfolio includes natural gas and biomass fueled facilities. Minnesota Power continuously searches for opportunities to diversify both fuels and generation technologies and invests in those opportunities when doing so has clear benefits to customers.

The M. L. Hibbard facility located in Duluth is an example. Hibbard was originally a coal plant, later converted to burn oil to meet increasingly stringent local environmental requirements. With the 1970s ban on burning both oil and natural gas for electric production, Hibbard's life appeared to be at an end. Not so - working with the City of Duluth, the facility was resurrected as a combined heat and power plant primarily fueled by wood. Duluth Steam District No. 2 supplies steam to local industry and to Minnesota Power's electric turbine/generators. As a result, the Hibbard Energy Center produces reasonably priced electric power while further diversifying the generation portfolio.

Minnesota Power has an ongoing goal to provide its customers reliable electric energy at reasonable cost while meeting all applicable environmental standards. On behalf of our customers, we will oppose legislative or regulatory mandates that would require we invest in unproven or more expensive technologies. Such investments place our customers' electric service reliability and affordability at risk. While we will vigorously oppose mandates, we will just as vigorously continue to explore opportunities to reliably and cost effectively diversify our supply portfolio.