Native Business Magazine featured an article about Yakama Nation’s utility company, Yakama Power. Yakama Power has come a long way since starting as a small utility serving one customer, Legends Casino. The Tribal utility, one of almost 20 Tribal utilities in the US, now delivers more than 18 MW of power to 3,000 customers.
“Forming a utility has immediate benefits. It allows the Tribe to have jurisdictional control; you control more of your destiny.”
Ray Wiseman, General Manager of Yakama Power, highlights some of the benefits of forming a Tribal utility: boosting sovereignty, providing high-paying jobs to Tribal members, and retaining electric revenues that would have otherwise gone off-Reservation.
Mr. Wiseman notes that before the utility, the Tribe would pay approximately $300 million for electric service to off-Reservation companies over a 10-year period. With the Tribal utility, Yakama Nation is able to capture about a third of those dollars and keep the revenues within the Tribal community.
Check out the article the learn more: Yakama Power: How One Tribe Secured its own Energy Future