Rural Minnesota residents will benefit from six USDA Rural Development electric utility infrastructure projects set to receive more than $135.7 million in loans from the agency. USDA is investing a total of $1.6 billion in 46 rural electric projects in 24 states to improve electric reliability.

In Minnesota, the following recipients, loan amounts and projects are:

• South Central Electric Association, St. James; $10 million. This loan will be used to build 23 miles of line, improve 42 miles and make other system improvements. The loan amount includes $2.76 million for smart grid projects. SCEA provides electric service to 4,700 members in Watonwan, Cottonwood, Martin, Jackson, Brown and Blue Earth counties.

• Lyon-Lincoln Electric Cooperative, Tyler; $7.04 million. This loan will be used to build 24 miles of line, improve 45 miles and make other system improvements, including a $285,000 investment in smart grid technologies. Lyon-Lincoln Electric serves 3,931 residential business consumers with more than 1,660 miles of line.

• Agralite Cooperative, Benson; $14.71 million. This loan will be used to build 8 miles of line, improve 70 miles and make other system improvements, including an investment of nearly $2.7 million in smart grid technologies. Agralite serves more than 5,200 residential and commercial consumers with more than 2,420 miles of line. The service territory is primarily rural, with a focus on farming, recreation and commercial industry that includes an ethanol plant, a commercial dairy farm and a turkey production facility.

• Co-op Light & Power Association of Lake County, Two Harbors; $5.67 million. This loan will be used to build 35 miles of line, improve 12 miles and make other system improvements, including $439,278 in smart grid technologies. The co-op serves more than 6,000 residential and commercial consumers in the Arrowhead region of northeastern Minnesota. Tourism, timber and mining are the major industries in the service territory, which also serves four state parks, a national forest and the Boundary Waters.

• Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative, Jordan; $31 million. This loan will be used to build 83 miles of line, improve 122 miles and make other system improvements. It includes nearly $1.6 million in smart grid technologies to serve 42,000 residents across a 968-square-mile service area encompassing nine counties: Blue Earth, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Le Sueur, Rice, Scott, Sibley and Waseca.

• Minnkota Power Cooperative, Grand Forks, N.D.; $67.4 million. This loan will be used to finance generation and transmission improvements. Minnkota is a regional generation and transmission cooperative, serving 11 distribution electric cooperatives that provide electric services to portions of 20 counties in eastern North Dakota and 17 counties in northwestern Minnesota. The service territory is approximately 35,000 square miles and has a population of 300,000. Minnkota has been a USDA borrower since December 1940.

The projects are funded through USDA’s Electric Program, with the intent to build or improve a total of 5,833 miles of line and to provide $307 million in smart grid technologies. The investments will benefit 7 million rural business and residential electric consumers across the country.

Last fall, USDA announced that $27.5 million in loans was approved for three Minnesota electric co-ops: Mille Lacs Energy Cooperative ($15 million), Red River Valley Cooperative Power Association ($8 million) and the Federated Rural Electric Association ($4.5 million).

For more information, visit rd.usda.gov.

Source: USDA Rural Development