Black Hills Energy announced its 2020 corporate sustainability report late last month, describing its environmental progress through “a historic and challenging year” marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company, based in Rapid City, South Dakota, has major offices in Fayetteville and serves 178,000 natural gas customers in 100 Arkansas communities, including Bentonville, Fayetteville, Harrison, Mountain Home, Rogers, Springdale and Siloam Springs. It has nearly 500 Arkansas employees and 7,248 miles of gas system infrastructure in the state.
Throughout last year, the company said, it cut natural gas emissions by a third and accomplished a 30% companywide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since 2005.
“Whether delivering energy to homes and businesses, helping customers in times of need, providing resources to our employees or partnering with communities, we recognize we are much more than a utility; we are an engaged corporate citizen,” Black Hills Vice President of Operations Chad Kinsley said in a company statement.
The utility company provides natural gas and electricity to nearly 1.3 million businesses and families in eight states. Its sustainability strategy calls for a 50% reduction in natural gas emissions by 2035 and a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030. It said it had completed a fourth renewable natural gas interconnection project in 2020, adding 400 million British thermal units per day of biogas to the company’s supply. It also commissioned a new wind energy facility in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Corriedale Wind Energy, putting 52 megawatts of renewable energy onto the grid.
Black Hills released $9.5 million in energy efficiency rebates last year to residential and business customers, touting annual energy savings of 30 million kilowatts of electricity and 330,000 dekatherms of natural gas, enough energy to power nearly 3,900 homes a year.
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