trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/yi_xzpbsctc24xn-f6uipw2 content esgSubNav
In This List

Alliant unit to build 150-MW wind farm in Iowa for Wis. customers

Podcast

Next in Tech | Episode 49: Carbon reduction in cloud

Blog

Using ESG Analysis to Support a Sustainable Future

Research

US utility commissioners: Who they are and how they impact regulation

Blog

Q&A: Datacenters: Energy Hogs or Sustainability Helpers?


Alliant unit to build 150-MW wind farm in Iowa for Wis. customers

Alliant Energy Corp. subsidiary Wisconsin Power and Light Co. asked Wisconsin regulators to approve a plan under which it will acquire a wind energy facility in Iowa and use the electricity to serve its customers in the state.

Wisconsin Power and Light, or WPL, on May 30 submitted an application to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin for a certificate of authority to construct the 150-MW Kossuth wind farm in Kossuth County, Iowa, though it is being developed to support 250 MW of nameplate capacity. WPL has also entered into an asset purchase agreement with private developer Invenergy LLC for the project, a deal expected to close in the first quarter of 2019. WPL estimated the cost of the wind facility at about $223 million.

During the company's first-quarter 2018 earnings call in early May, Alliant officials noted their recent acquisition of a portion of an existing wind energy facility in Wisconsin and said they would soon disclose additional investments in wind energy to serve their Wisconsin customers.

The Kossuth project is expected to increase WPL's supply of low-cost renewable energy through improved wind turbine technology and will generate approximately $81 million in net benefits to the utility's customers over its 30-year life, the company said in the application. The project should qualify for 100% of federal production tax credits that will significantly offset the installed costs of the project.

Upon its commissioning in September 2020, the wind farm will achieve an average net capacity factor of approximately 47% on average over the life of its operations due to the optimal wind resources at the selected location, in north-central Iowa.

The project is currently in an advanced phase of the Midcontinent ISO generator interconnection study process and will interconnect to the recently completed Kossuth-Webster 345-kV transmission line, one of MISO's "multivalue projects," specifically MVP 3. The MISO MVPs are transmission projects intended to improve regional reliability and provide grid access for wind energy resources.

The Kossuth wind project will be stretched across roughly 63,480 acres, too large and dispersed to use as a single brownfield site or set of continuous sites. WPL said it is not aware of any brownfield site where the project could be sited. WPL intends to develop and construct the project mainly on agricultural land in partnership with willing landowners so that the land can also be used for agricultural purposes.

WPL said that combined with the addition of the highly-efficient West Riverside Energy Center natural gas facility under construction and expected in service in early 2020, the upcoming retirement of the Edgewater unit 4 coal plant and Rock River 1 and 2 and Sheepskin gas-fired plants, and the continued growth of low-cost renewables in the marketplace, the Kossuth wind facility will be critical to the management of customer costs both in the near and long term. (Wisconsin PSC Docket No. 6680-CE-181)