The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission is moving closer to putting together formal rules to deal with stray electrical voltage at dairy farms across the state. Last year the South Dakota legislature established a remediation program for solving disagreements between electricity providers and dairy producers. Those rules must be in place by July 1 of this year. South Dakota Dairy Producers Association Executive Director Roger Scheibe of Volga says his group backs the PUC’s efforts.
Scheibe says it can be difficult to find the sources of stray voltage which makes it tough to solve the problem.
Scheibe says the testing cycle at farms for stray voltage should be 48 hours because there are variations in weather and power load that can affect the results of a study. The P-U-C is moving ahead in their proposed rules with the 48 hour cycle rather than 24 hours as some others had suggested.