City of Missoula/Missoula County/NorthWestern Energy Memorandum of Understanding - Adopted 6/22/2020

NorthWestern Energy supplies 95% of the electricity consumed in the Missoula urban area, and we have been in conversation with NorthWestern since adopting our 100% Clean Electricity Resolution about the possibility of working together in pursuit of our goal. As a first step, we drafted a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the city, the county, and NorthWestern. The MOU was considered in a joint virtual meeting of the Missoula City Council and Board of County Commissioners on June 22nd, 2020 and was adopted unanimously by both. You can view the MOU here.

This MOU serves an important purpose, but we want to be clear that it’s just one step on the road to 100%. See below for more on what this MOU is, and what it isn’t.

What it is. The MOU is a framework that articulates the commitment between the City of Missoula, Missoula County and NorthWestern Energy to work together toward Missoula’s 100% clean electricity goal, and creates a high-level structure to do so. It outlines the goals of the partnership and topics that we’ll work on together, and commits us to next steps and a timeline to do that work. It is an exciting step, but very big picture and high level. It is like a handshake to start a working relationship, but in writing, and social distancing friendly! We’re excited to do this publicly so that the community can witness the commitment of the three entities to work together in pursuit of our 100% clean electricity goal.

What it isn’t, and what to look forward to. The MOU doesn’t contain the exciting project, program and policy details that we would all probably like to dive straight into. Fear not! The MOU commits us to developing an implementation plan that will contain those details. We’re excited to get there too, and will jump right in after the MOU is signed. We’ll keep you updated on those happenings here. In the meantime, if you have ideas about what the implementation plan should include, we want to hear them! Please share them using the Ideas tool.