A Springfield-based electric cooperative that serves rural customers in three states pulled down $200 million in federally backed loans for upgrades to two power plants in Missouri and Arkansas.
Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. was among 37 utilities in 29 states that recently obtained more than $1 billion in low-interest loans through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development loan and grant program.
AECI received two loans in the amounts of $160 million and $40 million, said spokeswoman Nancy Southworth.
The larger of the two loans will partially finance $424 million worth of environmental controls at the 1,153-megawatt Thomas Hill Energy Center near Moberly, north of Columbia, Southworth said. The project involves the installation of catalytic reduction equipment on all three of the coal-fired plant's generators to remove 90 percent of nitrogen oxides - greenhouse gases linked to smog and acid rain - from flue-gas emissions, she said.
AECI will apply the second loan toward the $200 million Dell Power Plant project, a 580-megawatt, natural gas plant located near Dell, Ark., south of the Missouri Bootheel.
AECI purchased the partially built Dell plant from Tampa, Fla.-based TECO Energy Inc. in August 2005 and completed construction two years later.
The Dell plant is a combined-cycle plant that employs both a steam turbine and combustion turbine to power its generators. The result is a more efficient plant with lower emissions, according to AECI's Web site.
Southworth said AECI has previously obtained loans at "favorable interest rates" through the USDA's Rural Utilities Service. The co-op is paying 2 percent and 5 percent interest on RUS mortgage notes due quarterly through 2011, according its 2008 annual report, and Southworth said AECI would continue to utilize the long-term financing program as long as it's available.
"Even with the economy, loads are still growing, so we will need additional generation," she said.
AECI provides wholesale electric power to six regional generation and transmission co-ops that distribute the energy to 51 local member-owned co-ops serving 870,000 customers in rural parts of Missouri, northeast Oklahoma and southeast Iowa.
Other Missouri-based electric co-ops that received RUS loans in the latest round were Higginsville-based West Central Electric Cooperative Inc., which received a $12.9 million loan, and El Dorado Springs-based Sac Osage Electric Cooperative Inc., which received a $5.5 million loan. United Electric Cooperative Inc., which has its headquarters in northwestern Missouri but serves some customers in southwestern Iowa, also received a $19 million loan.[[In-content Ad]]
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