advocating for
a Prosperous,
Diverse Economy

Holland BPW works hard to make Holland a prosperous community, and that priority extends beyond providing safe, reliable power, drinking water, sewage treatment and internet. Part of providing these services for residential and commercial customers includes accommodating industries with larger needs. These businesses bolster our local economy, providing jobs, goods and services while they themselves also purchase goods and services from others in our community.

In providing electricity to our commercial and industrial customers, we encourage business growth for current and potential businesses looking at the Holland area. We encourage this growth through an Economic Development Incentive Rider. This rider serves as a credit against a business’s bill based on actual usage for the first three years of their new or increased capacity. 

Our team determines these rates based on a number of criteria, scoring companies on their power needs, the number of jobs they would bring to our community, what industry sector they belong to, whether their building is LEED certified, etc. These factors qualify companies for a percentage credit, allowing them to save up to 30% of their actual capacity charge for the first year, with a decreasing credit percentage in the two following years. T The process to award the economic development incentive has set measures in place to ensure equal opportunity for all businesses.

Through this Economic Development Incentive Rider, we encourage healthy business diversification in our community. Companies with new North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes new to our service areas receive higher marks. This allows our community to grow and expand in multiple directions without placing all of our jobs in one industry. 

Just as businesses strive to diversify their client base to build resiliency, the diversity of industries in our region makes Holland uniquely well positioned for the future. This also protects our power and infrastructure investments. As Holland BPW makes investments to support growth, we consider longevity and the prosperity of the people in our community. Change is inevitable, and our intention is to help support the economy of the future.

Having a diverse range of industries including manufacturing, transportation, food and agriculture, hospitality, and furniture protects our community as well as the investments that we have made in the electric, water, wastewater and internet infrastructure that serves these entities.

Resource Commitments

We work closely with large companies that choose to expand in Holland BPW’s service area, ensuring that agreements for electric and other services are fair for business as well as our other ratepayers. The Economic Development Incentive Rider application is also a tool for forecasting future electricity needs. Working together through the planning process helps us take measured steps to meet these forecasted needs. In our planning with those companies we include resource commitment agreements to protect our customer-owners’ investments in infrastructure upgrades or improvements.

For instance, customers with large capacity needs (the largest amount of electricity they might need at one time) could put added stress on our existing electric demand. In some cases their increased demand along with other projected increases might require new infrastructure for our systems. 

While considering the opportunities for our region, we also consider the risk involved in making investments in new infrastructure. Depending on the circumstance, we may also add stipulations for large customers to pay the difference between their estimated and actual use if they do not meet the estimated usage or peak capacity as they thought. This protects the investments we carefully make while also protecting ratepayers in case of underutilization.

As we continue to plan for our city’s growth, we look forward to continually growing and caring for our assets–including through wastewater, water, electric and fiber projects–that allow Holland to thrive.