Dairyland Power Cooperative was one of 82 electric projects in 31 states to receive a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday.
The western Wisconsin utility was awarded an $87 million low-interest loan through the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service for system maintenance and improvements.
Katie Thomson, senior communications specialist for Dairyland, said the cooperative plans to use the money for a number of different projects, including a recently completed transmission line near Chetek.
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“Dairyland is also using $24 million of (the) loan for quite a few different generation projects at power plants,” Thomson said. “The largest portion of that is for a boiler project at our Alma site.”
Another part of the loan will cover maintenance or rebuilding projects on 94 miles of transmission line in Illinois and Minnesota.
Thomson said all of the projects funded by the loan are part of Dairyland’s normal schedule for maintenance and improvement.
“It covers many other maintenance projects like transformer work, turbine work, everything that assists in the reliability and the efficiency of our power plants,” Thomson said.
And $3.8 million is specifically for new technology to increase efficiency on the grid.
“These funds that we are using will be principally related to our energy management system and those help maintain and upgrade those smart tech system,” Thomson said.
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