MITCHELL, S.D. (MITCHELLNOW) A cooperative that supplies power to nine of the electric co-ops serving the central part of South Dakota is one of the recipients splitting over $7.3 billion from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  Basin Electric Power Cooperative is one of 16 entities receiving dollars from the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack says each year, the 16 projects will collectively remove the carbon emissions equivalent of more than 10 million cars.

USDA Rural Development State Director for South Dakota Nikki Gronli says with this funding, Basin Electric will procure more than 1,400 megawatts of additional renewable energy generation.

USDA says the Basin Electric project will reduce greenhouse gas pollution by an estimated 2.2 million tons annually, which is the equivalent of removing 522,000 gasoline-powered cars from the roadways. Among the cooperatives in central South Dakota that get at least some of their power from Basin Electric are: Oahe Electric, West Central Electric, Rosebud Electric, Moreau-Grand Electric, FEM Electric, East River Electric, Dakota Energy, Cherry-Todd Electric and Cam Wal Electric.

Find more information about the selectees and their projects in this story on the News page at www.DRGnews.com.

The first round of selectees and the states they serve are as follows:

• Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc., Pennsylvania and New Jersey
• Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, Inc., Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico
• Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota
• Buckeye Power, Inc., Ohio
• CORE Electric Cooperative, Colorado
• Dairyland Power Cooperative, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota
• East Kentucky Power Cooperative, Kentucky
• Golden Valley Electric Association, Alaska
• Great River Energy, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin
• Hoosier Energy, Indiana and Michigan
• Minnkota Power Cooperative, North Dakota and Minnesota
• San Miguel Electric Cooperative Inc., Texas
• Seminole Electric Cooperative, Inc., Florida
• Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Inc., Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Wyoming
• United Power, Colorado
• Wolverine Power Supply Cooperative, Michigan

The 16 selectees will use New ERA funds to:

• Deliver cleaner, more affordable and more resilient electricity to approximately 5 million households across 23 states, representing 20% of the nation’s rural households, farms, businesses and schools. The states served by this set of selectees include Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
• Support more than 4,500 permanent jobs and 16,000 construction jobs.
• Reduce pollution by 2.9 billion tons over the lifetime of the projects, or more than 43.7 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, equivalent to removing more than 10 million gasoline-powered cars off the road.
• Build or purchase over 10 gigawatts of clean energy – including 3,723 megawatts of wind, 4,733 megawatts of solar, 804 megawatts of nuclear and 357 megawatts of hydropower – and make enabling investments in transmission, substation upgrades, and distributed energy resource management software, lowering energy costs for rural Americans and enhancing grid resiliency, all of which will help meet growing electricity demand and power President Biden’s manufacturing renaissance.
• Build 1,892 megawatt hours of battery storage, which increases grid reliability and significantly reduces outage times for local customers.