Basin Electric Power Cooperative is getting a $61 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Agriculture Department to improve its ability to move large amounts of electric power.

Floyd Robb, a Basin spokesman, said the 35-year loan will finance construction of a converter to allow Basin to transfer power from east to west, or vice versa. The U.S. electrical transmission grid has relatively few links between eastern and western markets.

Construction started last year on the million east-west tie involving Basin and Black Hills Power and Light, an investor-owned company from Rapid City, S.D.

"That was based on an agreement with Black Hills, which needed additional capacity, east to west, as well," Robb said.

"We had used some of our own money and other funding sources to get started. This is something we had to get in process," he said.

A 23-mile, 230-kilovolt transmission line is being built to transmit the power. The line runs from a Western Area Power Association substation near New Underwood, S.D., to the converter, Basin officials said.

The converter is to be finished in the fall. Robb said Basin customers may not notice the change.

"For the most part, people will turn on their light switches and the power will come on," he said. "But the bottom line is, it allows us diversity. When we need power to go east to west, or west to east, it allows us more options."

The converter looks like a large substation, Robb said. Basin expects to be able to transmit another 130 megawatts of power when it becomes operational. Black Hills Power, of Rapid City, S.D., will use 70 megawatts.

North Dakota's Democratic congressional delegation, Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan and Rep. Earl Pomeroy, announced the loan guarantee on Monday.

Basin Electric, which is based in Bismarck, runs electric generating plants for 124 member systems in nine states, serving more than 1.7 million people.