The now defunct Big Stone II power plant project near Milbank, S.D., was the biggest, best and lowest cost alternative on the table to produce electricity in the region.

"Whatever the alternative is is going to cost more, and that is unfortunate," North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer said this week in reacting to the announcement that the last backers of the Big Stone project were withdrawing.

The Big Stone II Project was a planned 500-to-600-megawatt coal-fired power plant and its associated transmission.

The project required additional participants to move forward and was fully permitted. The Big Stone II Project participants were Central Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, Heartland Consumers Power District, Missouri River Energy Services and Montana-Dakota Utilities Co.

Cramer said stopping the project is a significant setback for consumers of electricity in North Dakota. "We celebrate the fact that we are among the lowest rates in the country," he said.

There is no question the uncertainty of federal regulation that is being thrown around in Washington, D.C., creates problems for investment in coal-fired power plants, Cramer said.

"Investment likes certainty," he said, but that isn't possible with the squabbling that continues in Congress regarding climate and energy legislation, despite the fact that Democrats have all the power in Washington, D.C.

Until a consensus on climate and energy legislation is reached and the impacts are understood, Cramer said utilities are stuck looking for long-term purchase power agreements.

"The market price for electricity costs more than when you are generating it yourself," he said.

The economic downturn adds to the difficulty for investors, Cramer added.

"When the economy turns down, energy needs also decline," he said. "So even now there is that uncertainty of what the future holds."

The Big Stone II project also was to address transmission capacity needs in the region that included new capacity for wind power projects in the two states.

"The loss of that transmission upgrade is as important a loss to North Dakota's energy future as is the loss of Big Stone II itself," Cramer said. "That transmission line would have added several hundred megawatts of capacity for wind energy export out of North Dakota."

Transmission lines must be built to carry the wind energy that is being planned for the state, as the current electrical grid is saturated.

"I do know there are wind developers, although not overly optimistic, who are trying to engage in discussions about doing some sort of transmission built out comparable to what Big Stone II would have been," Cramer said. "It's hard to build transmission specifically for wind because you have to cover those costs."

Cramer referenced the announcement late last month by the Tennessee Valley Authority that it has entered into contracts to purchase up to 200 megawatts of wind energy from CPV Renewable Energy Company via its Ashley, N.D., wind farm that involves 87 wind turbines.

That agreement, however, requires the energy provider to deliver the power direct to the TVA.

"I don't know how the Big Stone II transmission situation will impact that," Cramer said.

The agreement announcement on the TVA Web site states energy is to be delivered beginning in 2012, "if all applicable environmental requirements are met and firm transmission paths to TVA are secured."

"You don't build transmission in a vacuum," Cramer said. "Somehow, we got to get all of the parties at the table."