Long before skyrocketing energy demand grabbed national headlines, electric cooperatives—grounded in serving their communities—were taking on the challenge of building new transmission to modernize the grid and strengthen reliability.

Now, after navigating years-long timelines, many co-ops are bringing transmission projects online just as industrial expansion, data centers and widespread electrification strain the grid.

Over the next decade, summer and winter peak demand are projected to climb by 224 gigawatts and 246 gigawatts, respectively. Just one gigawatt is enough electricity to power up to 1 million homes. Transmission is a piece of the demand puzzle. And co-ops credit their progress to an unwavering commitment to deliver safe, affordable, reliable electricity to their members, no matter how complex the regulatory landscape.

“Member reliability is our North Star," says Priti Patel, vice president and chief transmission officer at Great River Energy, which is advancing two significant projects after five years of conversations with property owners and other stakeholders.

“When we think of transmission, we think of a lifeline for business," Patel says. “We think of a lifeline for homes, safety, health and commercial viability. That's what transmission represents to us, electricity 24-7."

Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Dairyland Power Cooperative and Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. are among the generation and transmission co-ops that recently completed significant projects to move more electricity across the country and build a more resilient system.

Like Great River Energy, they focused on meeting load growth within existing rights of way, deploying stronger, more durable technologies and hosting dozens of public meetings before construction began.

“Electric cooperatives have a long history of serving their members, and that same commitment is driving their work to develop new transmission capacity to meet the nation's rising electricity demand," says Patti Metro, NRECA's senior grid operations and reliability director.

Basin Electric

Basin Electric built and activated a 33-mile extra high-voltage 345-kilovolt transmission line in western North Dakota in 2024—five months ahead of schedule.

The project began when the Southwest Power Pool, the regional transmission organization, identified the existing radial 345-kV line for a critical reliability upgrade in 2022. Basin Electric, the Bismarck-based G&T that serves 139 distribution co-ops and more than 3 million members across nine states, responded quickly.

“Western North Dakota's transmission network was becoming too weak to reliably support the region's rapid load growth," says Philip Westby, Basin Electric manager of transmission services.

Construction on the Roundup-to-Kummer Ridge 345-kV line began in April 2024, and it was energized that December. The new power line improves voltage stability, reduces costly congestion and enhances Basin Electric's ability to meet higher demand forecasts. It is also more resistant to damage during extreme weather events.

“The Roundup-to-Kummer Ridge 345-kV line is already strengthening service to members by providing much more stable and resilient transmission," Westby says. “The line is enhancing reliability today while ensuring the system can safely support continued growth across the region."

The project features aluminum encapsulated carbon core conductor to carry electric current, improving line strength and thermal performance compared to traditional steel core designs. It also allows the line “to carry more capacity and maintain excellent reliability under high temperature and heavy load conditions," Westby says.

Working with the community proved vital to early completion of the Roundup-to-Kummer Ridge line. The leadership of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation was “instrumental throughout the design, routing and construction phases, helping ensure timely decisions and successful project completion," Westby says.

Co-ops pursuing new transmission projects can benefit from starting early with clear technical justification and consistent communication with their regional transmission organization, stakeholders and neighboring utilities, he says.

He also emphasizes the importance of strong internal coordination—bringing together engineering, operations and leadership to defi ne expectations, streamline decision-making and document the process.

“The key to the project's success was strong collaboration across teams and partners," he says.

Dairyland Power Cooperative

The Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Line Project is crucial for increasing the flow of electricity, reducing costly congestion and tapping more than 24.5 gigawatts of lower-cost energy from 160 diverse resources in Wisconsin, Iowa and other Upper Midwestern states.

La Crosse, Wisconsin-based Dairyland Power Cooperative co-owns the 102-mile, 345-kV transmission line with transmission-only electric utilities ITC Midwest and American Transmission Co.

The power line was placed in service in September 2024, after roughly 13 years of securing federal approvals and permits—even though 95% of the route follows existing rights of way for roads, railways and utility infrastructure.

The project also brought environmental benefits, removing the existing transmission structures in the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, and returning 36 acres of high-quality land in exchange for 19 acres of low-quality land for construction.

The new line features avian-friendly equipment and design elements to further protect wildlife.

“Throughout the project, we worked to avoid, minimize and mitigate environmental impacts by using industry-leading best management practices," says Ben Porath, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Dairyland, which serves 24 distribution co-ops and 27 municipal utilities.

“Now that the Cardinal-Hickory Creek line is in service, it is generating valuable tax revenue for the communities along its route while strengthening grid reliability and resilience at a time of great change in the energy industry generation resources."

As part of NRECA's efforts to advocate for federal permitting reform to facilitate generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure projects, John Carr, then-vice president of strategic growth at the G&T, testified before Congress in 2023 about how the Cardinal-Hickory Creek project exemplified why the National Environmental Policy Act and other permitting processes are ripe for reform.

“As Dairyland has experienced firsthand, lengthy NEPA reviews and litigation delay the completion of critical infrastructure projects, require significantly more time and resources and have a direct negative impact on communities served by these projects," he told lawmakers.

The G&T credits collaboration, perseverance, transparency and open communication channels to the project's ultimate success.

“Engage all stakeholders early and often, ensuring extensive opportunities for public input so everyone's voice is heard during the regulatory process," says Katie Thomson, Dairyland's director of communications, member services and stakeholder engagement.

Dairyland and GridLiance Heartland are also currently developing the proposed MariBell Transmission Project, a 140-mile, 765-kV/161-kV double-circuit line in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.

Little Rock-based Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp., which serves distribution co-ops across its home state, recently built a switching station for a distribution substation and two 115-kV line sections, one three miles and another 12 miles.

“The existing substation was at high risk of becoming overloaded with the increase in consumer-members," says Wright. “The addition of the switching station and three-mile line section not only provided a feed into the new distribution substation but provided the opportunity to loop the system with another substation down the line. This results in increased system reliability."

Wright credits AECC's work with Jacksonville-based First Electric Cooperative Corp. and an area investor-owned utility, Entergy Arkansas, for pushing the project over the finish line. AECC connected to Entergy's 115-kV line to feed the new switching station.

Transmission projects must have “coordination and planning on the front end," he says, recommending that co-ops “plan for the unexpected and look for alternative methods to complete a project."

On a separate project to address rising load, AECC found a way to fully utilize a conductor when other components did not match its maximum rate. A “new-to-us" connector allowed the conductor to bypass the existing dead ends and reach its ampacity current, he says.

“We could de-energize the line section and re-energize it when needed," says Wright. “Using these connectors saved us months of having the line section de-energized and allowed us to save AECC's members thousands of dollars."

Great River Energy

Maple Grove, Minnesota-based Great River Energy is in the midst of two significant transmission projects that will fortify reliability and deliver more electricity to its 26 distribution member co-ops facing growing demand.

The 180-mile, double-circuit-capable 345-kV Northland Reliability Project aims to carry about 3,000 megawatts across northern and central Minnesota beginning in 2030.

In October of last year, the G&T partnered with investor-owned Minnesota Power and broke ground on the project that will connect to substation assets owned by both utilities.

Great River Energy has also launched the Pilot Knob-Burnsville Upgrade Project to replace a nearly nine-mile 69-kV transmission line with a 115-kV line and update two substations in the highly populated suburbs of the Twin Cities by 2028. The bigger kV line will move 598 MW compared to the 48 MW the existing line transmits.

“That's a significant increase and it allows this area to be able to grow with commercial, industrial, EV and other load growth," says Great River Energy's Patel.

The projects are being built to withstand increasingly extreme weather sweeping the Midwest. Power line conductor will be more resistant to icing and the projects' steel poles, foundations and structures are designed to sustain extreme winds.

For both projects, the co-op took a very deliberate path of public outreach. Over five years, Great River Energy held public meetings in multiple locations, beyond the requirements of the regulatory process. The G&T listened to hundreds of consumer-members and explained the benefits of modernizing the grid.

“Even projects that are an upgrade to an existing line can expect pushback," Patel says. “The approach we take with communities is to quite literally meet them where they're at, critically helping them understand what their community is likely to see with load growth and then helping them understand what infrastructure will be needed to accommodate that load growth."