The federal Rural Utilities Service is providing Central Power Cooperative with a $46 million dollar loan to finance upgrades.
"The funds will be used to build 5 new substations, install 51 miles of new transmission line, and support 19 substation upgrades," said USDA Undersecretary for Rural Development Lisa Mensah. "This is very exciting."
Mensah says it's rare for a loan that size to be granted to one institution. She says the needs for increased power production to serve both the agriculture and energy industries in North Dakota shows the upgrades are needed.
North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives general manager Dennis Hill says it's being driven by energy development -- and agriculture.
"As I drive across Rural North Dakota, I'm struck by a couple of things," said Hill. "In agriculture, there's probably more on-farm storage and demand for power than when I was raised on a family farm. The person that bought our family farm has more capacity than the Garrison Farmers Union elevator used to have."
Hill says if you want to power that whole farm, it takes more infrastructure.
"The old single line running with a tiny transformer just doesn't cut it anymore," said Hill.
The loan includes $171,000 for “smart grid” technology. Hill says that’s a matter of communication – knowing where the demand is, and rerouting power to meet that demand – or restore power in case of an outage.
"That can all be done with a mouse in a room somewhere," said Hill. "They click on certain things, and the power is magically rerouted from one line to another. Nad you don't even notice it as a consumer."
USDA’s Rural Utilities Service has granted more than $1.8 billion worth of loans to North Dakota co-ops since 2009.
