Basin Electric Power Cooperative has begun work on Deer Creek Station in South Dakota, US.

Deer Creek is expected to become a 300MW natural gas-fired combined-cycle power plant once complete.

Basin Electric performance and mechanical engineering manager and Deer Creek Station project coordinator Gavin McCollam said construction of the $405m power plant will take about two years.

The station will use two turbine-generator sets, one fired by natural gas and the other by steam from the exhaust heat of the gas turbine.

Natural gas for the plant will come from the Northern Border Pipeline, 14 miles to the north, through a 10-inch diameter pipeline for the station.

The plant is scheduled to be operational in mid-2012.