Heartland Consumers Power District, as a participating utility, announced today that the Big Stone II Project, a planned 500-to600-megawatt coal-fired power plant that was to be located near Milbank, South Dakota, and its associated transmission, will not be built. The project required additional participants to move forward; however none have committed.

Big Stone II, a fully permitted project, had been determined to be the least-cost, environmentally sound baseload power plant for the project participants. It was designed to improve the emissions profile of the existing Big Stone Plant and the transmission facilities were to be sized to serve the region’s burgeoning wind energy development.

“Due to an unknown commercial operation date and lack of additional participants, it is not in the best interest of our customers to proceed with Big Stone II,” said Heartland General Manager Mike McDowell. “It is no longer fiscally responsible for Heartland to participate in this project.”

The Big Stone II Project participants along with Heartland were Central Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, Missouri River Energy Services and Montana-Dakota Utilities Co.