OPPD’s energy future is region’s economic future

Major economic development projects increasingly turn on a few critical infrastructure questions: how much power a facility will require, when that power must be available and whether the system can support future growth.

Those answers increasingly shape where major investments happen. For many major projects competing for investment today — including advanced manufacturers, technology companies, and agricultural processors — reliable electricity is now economic development infrastructure. A region that can answer the power question with confidence is prepared to compete for projects that can create jobs and generate investment for decades.

That is why the Omaha Public Power District’s 2026 Integrated System Plan deserves attention well beyond the utility industry. It belongs in the broader regional conversation about growth.

Every five years, OPPD develops a long-range plan for meeting future demand. This year’s process reaches across generation, transmission, distribution and customer solutions through 2050. OPPD’s planning materials include a base case with moderate large-customer growth and a high-growth case with extensive large-customer growth. The utility has also said it expects roughly 100 megawatts of load growth annually for the foreseeable future.

Those are utility planning assumptions. From our vantage point at the Greater Omaha Chamber, they also describe economic opportunity.

Our economic development team works every day with companies considering major investments, expansions, and relocations. We see the scale of projects moving through the market and the speed at which their energy needs are growing. Major projects often make location and infrastructure decisions years before the first employee reports to work. They need confidence that a community can deliver the power they need on the timeline their investment requires.

Greater Omaha should plan for that level of success.

A growth mindset does not require predicting every company, technology or megawatt that will arrive over the next 15 years. It means preserving our ability to say yes when opportunity comes. Electric infrastructure takes years to plan, permit, procure, connect and build. The capacity our region may need in 2035 must be contemplated long before 2035.

OPPD is now entering the initial-results phase of this process. The decisions that follow should treat strong growth as a central planning case and build enough runway for the region through 2040 and beyond.

The same mindset should guide the generation portfolio.

Every energy resource runs on a different clock. Some can help meet nearer-term needs. Others require years of study, permitting, equipment procurement and construction. An all-of-the-above strategy allows OPPD to advance those clocks at the same time.

Battery storage, demand-response programs, natural gas generation, renewable resources and emerging technologies can each contribute to a reliable and resilient system. Longer-lead options, including advanced nuclear, deserve serious study now because the work started today determines which options are available a decade from now.

This also matters for reliability. Utilities must maintain generation capacity above forecast demand to help ensure they can continue serving customers during peak conditions, extreme weather, unexpected outages, and other stresses. That cushion is known as a planning reserve margin. Those requirements are becoming more stringent across the Southwest Power Pool even as OPPD’s customer demand grows. OPPD says it has continued to meet those requirements.

The Integrated System Plan is an opportunity to align our energy infrastructure with the economic ambitions greater Omaha is already pursuing.

The companies making location and expansion decisions today are planning facilities that may operate for generations. Our energy planning should carry the same horizon.

The goal is straightforward: build the capacity for the growth we intend to achieve.

Done well, power becomes one of greater Omaha’s strongest competitive advantages and a foundation for the jobs, investment and prosperity our region can create for the next generation.