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Becker is a city in Sherburne County, Minnesota, situated between the Mississippi and Elk Rivers.

Becker was settled in 1855 and named for George Loomis Becker, a state legislator, and a post office called Becker has been in operation since 1870.

The city of Becker was incorporated on November 22, 1904.

The population of Becker was 4,877 at the 2020 census, up from 4,538 in 2010, and the city has about 1,805 households according to Census Bureau figures for 2020-2024.

Becker is best known as the home of the Sherburne County Generating Station, known as Sherco, Xcel Energy's massive coal-fired power plant and long the largest power plant in Minnesota.

Sherco's three units have a combined capacity of about 2,400 megawatts, a larger peak output than Minnesota's two nuclear power plants combined.

The Sherco plant burns 20,000 to 30,000 tons of coal per day, delivered by up to three 115-car trains daily from mines in the Powder River Basin.

Sherco's first two units came online in 1976 and 1977, and the roughly 900-megawatt Unit 3 followed in 1987 at a cost of about $1 billion.

Becker's city borders extend around the Sherco plant, and the town has long depended heavily on the plant for property tax revenue.

Xcel Energy retired Sherco's Unit 2 at the end of 2023, and the company has been building the Sherco Solar project near Becker to replace the coal plant's generation.