Sweet Relief

‘NorthWestern Energy went above and beyond’ when we helped Western Sugar replace a failed transformer.

In early August, Western Sugar in Billings reached out to NorthWestern Energy because a transformer at the sugar beet processing facility had failed.

As a large industrial customer, Western Sugar provides and maintains its own transformers, unlike smaller customers where NorthWestern owns the transformers. The failed transformer was a 13,622-pound, 6-foot-wide, nearly 6-foot-tall, 2,500 kVA transformer – not something you can buy at the average hardware store or electrical supply store.

“The wait for a 2,500 kVA transformer is about 60 weeks,” said NorthWestern Key Accounts Manager Debbie Singer.

Unfortunately, Western Sugar’s fall beet processing season was just a few weeks away, and the plant wouldn’t be able to operate without the transformer. That would have meant a loss of hundreds of jobs at the plant and a major loss to all the sugar beet farmers in the region who wouldn’t have had a plant to ship their beets. Western Sugar is a farmer-owned cooperative, so the farmers own the business, and any shutting down of the plant would have been catastrophic to the regional agricultural community.

Western Sugar in Billings processes sugar beets into sugar. When a transformer failed just before processing season, NorthWestern Energy was able to come to the plant’s aid.

Luckily, NorthWestern Energy had a spare 2,500 kVA transformer in our Billings warehouse that we were able to sell to Western Sugar.

“We are not in the business of selling electrical equipment to customers,” Debbie said. “However, we went the extra mile to make it work for them.”

The transformer, which was so large a crane was needed to lift it onto a flatbed trailer, was installed at Western Sugar in time to begin sugar beet processing on schedule.

“We really appreciate NorthWestern Energy coming to our aid when we were in a serious bind,” said Joe Bladecki, Western Sugar’s Plant Manager. “NorthWestern went above and beyond.”