BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A Bismarck company that sells wholesale electricity announced Monday that it has purchased North Dakota’s largest coal-fired power plant from a Minnesota company that had intended to close the facility if no buyer could be found.
Rainbow Energy Center LLC announced last year that it had reached an agreement to acquire the Coal Creek Station in west-central North Dakota from Great River Energy based in Maple Grove, Minnesota. The acquisition also includes associated transmission lines that run from central North Dakota to Minnesota by Nexus Line LLC, an affiliate of Rainbow Energy.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though the state provided a bond of up to $150 million to help finance the transmission line, officials said.
Great River Energy announced two years ago it would close the plant in the second half of 2022 and use wind farms in Minnesota to produce most of its energy. The plant employs 260 workers and has operated for more than 40 years.
The potential closure of Coal Creek had also threatened North American Coal’s Falkirk Mine, which supplies lignite to the power plant and employs several hundred workers.
