General

The Wire’s top stories of 2025

It was a big year for OPPD. The utility brought two new natural gas generation plants online in 2025 and launched work on major transmission projects, all of which will help OPPD continue to provide reliable service amid explosive growth in demand.  

In addition to that, the utility also rolled out new technology that provides customers with a slew of tools to help them personalize their experience with OPPD. The tools give customers a more detailed picture of their energy usage and more control over their account. They also provide faster and more precise outage information and more. The Wire’s top stories of 2025 include several stories about those updates. 

Other topics covered in the year’s top stories include OPPD partnering with Kiewit to add new natural gas generation at two generation plants, and the most destructive storm in the company’s history, in terms of infrastructure. The resident peregrine falcons at North Omaha Station made the list, as well.  

The Wire also continued to provide information around traditional utility topics, as well as products and services for customers. And we launched a new series, Electricity 101, that’s focused on making the sometimes complicated world of electricity easier to understand. 

Below are the top stories for 2025, based on page views. 

10. Resident falcons return to North Omaha Station, with a plot twist. Lewis and Clark made their annual return to Omaha, but in an unexpected turn of events, Clark arrived first and spent some time with another falcon – not her sibling and longtime mate, Lewis – that joined her in the space. The two appeared to be very friendly, carrying on a bit of a courtship. But that arrangement was short lived, and the other falcon wasn’t seen again after Lewis arrived. 

9. Beak Randby’s big adventure. After two years of losses – losing one clutch in 2023 and two clutches in 2024 – Lewis and Clark successfully raised a new chick in 2025. Observers were thrilled. But a couple months later, the chick, Beak Randby, gave everyone a scare when she appeared to have fallen from the nest. Fortunately, she was spotted the next day on a stairwell, and her parents took care of her from there until she was able to fly back to the nest with them. 

8. OPPD’s 2026 budget supports reliability amid surging demand and new regulations. OPPD’s board of directors in December approved the utility’s $2.98 billion 2026 Corporate Operating Plan, which supports vital infrastructure investments needed to maintain reliability and serve the enormous load growth in every customer class in OPPD’s service territory.  

7. The most destructive storm in OPPD’s history. A blizzard raged through eastern Nebraska on March 19. The storm caused the utility’s fifth-largest as measured by the number of outages. But the storm was the biggest by far in terms of damage to OPPD’s infrastructure. 

6. What’s up in your neighborhood? OPPD’s new Projects in Your Neighborhood webpage gives customers a clickable, searchable map of work throughout OPPD’s service territory. You can type in an address to see nearby projects or scroll around on the map itself to see what kind of work is happening across the district.  

5. OPPD, Kiewit partner on new natural gas generation. The Omaha-based construction and engineering firm will work with OPPD to add three new natural gas units at Cass County Station and one additional unit at Turtle Creek Station, which officially came online in 2025. In addition, Kiewit’s power division will help convert two natural gas units already at Cass County Station so that they can run on either natural gas or fuel oil as a backup. 

4. New map provides easy access to outage information. A new, interactive map provides detailed, real-time information about outages throughout OPPD’s service area, and you also have the option of subscribing to an outage to receive updates via text.  

3. What smart meters will mean for you. OPPD began rolling out its new Advanced Metering Infrastructure technology in 2025. The new meters provide faster and more precise outage information and allow two-way communication between OPPD and individual customer meters, meaning OPPD can respond to outages more quickly or even detect and repair a problem before it can cause an outage.  

2. MyOPPD portal gives you more control over your account information. The customer portal gives customers a variety of ways to personalize how they interact with OPPD. You can track your electricity usage, pay bills or seek help with payments, check outages, set up reminders, report home and streetlight outages, and more.  

1. Technology upgrades on the horizon. As you may have surmised from several of the items listed above, OPPD’s slew of technological updates drew considerable interest in 2025. Half of  the top stories of 2025 covered the new technology and tools OPPD rolled out for its customers.