La Crosse-based Dairyland Power Cooperative hopes to complete negotiations by Aug. 1 on partial ownership of a proposed coal-fired power plant near Wausau, Wis., Dairyland President and Chief Executive Officer William Berg said Wednesday.

"It's not certain, but everything is pointing in that direction," Berg said, when asked if an agreement is likely between Dairyland and Green Baybased Wisconsin Public Service Corp. "We don't see anything that's going to be a fatal flaw," he said in an interview after Dairyland's annual meeting at the LaCrosse Center.

Dairyland and WPSC said in February they had signed a letter of intent to further negotiate Dairyland's possible participation in WPSC's proposed Weston 4 coalfired power plant project. They said talks involve 150 megawatts of energy from the proposed 500-megawatt project,

The companies also said if approved by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, the Weston 4 plant is scheduled to begin operation in 2008. It would become WPSCs fourth generator powered with coal at its 450-acre Weston power plant just south of Wausau.

If an agreement is reached, Berg said, Dairyland would own 30 percent of the Weston 4 plant.

Dairyland continues to explore various power-supply options. Its five generating stations can produce about 1,066 megawatts, and Dairyland reached a new peak demand of more than 812 megawatts of electricity last August. It expects demand to increase more than 300 megawatts during the next 20 years. Dairyland provides wholesale electricity to 25 member distribution cooperatives and 20 municipal utilities in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.

The generation and transmission cooperative also has been considering three sites land next to its two coal-fired stations at Alma, Wis., and sites near Mona, Iowa, and New Hampton, Iowa, for construction of its own power plant.

"First we had all of these (power-supply options) sort of in contention with one another," Berg said. "But now we're diverting most of our attention to that Weston 4 site. These others (Alma and the two Iowa sites), we're just sort of keeping there pending further analysis of what our needs are going to be."

Dairyland eventually will need additional capacity beyond the 150 megawatts it would own at the planned Weston 4 unit, Berg said. "And trying to pin down the exact timing of all of that is one of the things we would need to do," he said. He had no timetable for deciding whether to build a plant at the Alma or Iowa sites.

Dairyland also has been expanding its renewable energy program, with participation in wind farms and a gas-to-energy generating facility at an Eau Claire, Wis., landfill. And it is working with a New Hampshire firm to produce "waste-to-energy" renewable electricity at dairy and swine farms within the Dairyland system. Methane would be produced through anaerobic digestion of manure, and would be burned by an engine to produce electricity.

"You all have taken a great, giant step," keynote speaker Hilda Gay Legg told 700 electric cooperative leaders at Wednesday's meeting. Legg, administrator of the Rural Utilities Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said she does not know of a more progressive generation and transmission cooperative, when it comes to renewable energy.