ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP) - The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission is looking at using a fossil fuel project as a way to help transport wind energy.

Basin Electric Cooperative of Bismarck, N.D., plans to build a $2 billion coal-fired power plant near Selby in north-central South Dakota.

Public Utilities Commissioner Gary Hanson said Monday that if the project goes through, his agency would likely require the power lines that go with it to have extra transmission space so electricity created by wind turbines could be sent to larger markets.

South Dakota could create much power from the wind, but a lack of transmission lines limits that potential.

Hanson said it's likely the PUC would require power lines with as much as 800 megawatts of extra capacity, which is what the commission did when it approved a permit for Big Stone II, a planned coal plant in Grant County last year.

Federal and state regulators would have to approve the Selby coal plant, but Hanson indicated the PUC likely would look favorably on a permit request from the so-called NextGen plant.

"It's probably going to be the cleanest coal plant in the nation," Hanson said. "In the world."

He spoke Monday in Aberdeen at a PUC candidate forum sponsored by the Utility Shareholders of South Dakota. The Republican is on the November ballot with Democrat Matt McLarty and Constitution Party candidate Eugene R. Hildago.

Basin has said it will look to other financing sources after the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicated it was suspending its low-interest lending program that helps rural electric cooperatives.