By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
Days after announcing it would pay $110 million to get out of a contract that required it to buy power from an Iowa nuclear plant, Alliant Energy announced it was planning to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% and eliminate coal from its portfolio by 2050.
The Madison, Wisconsin-based utility that serves Iowa in addition to its home state made the announcement in its corporate sustainability report.
The company says it plans to spend $2 billion on new renewable investments including wind and solar, including doubling the number of wind sites from six to 12 (some of which, as we reported last week, will go to offset the retirement of the nuclear plant). They also pledged that renewables would make up 30% of the utility’s total generation portfolio by 2030.
Alliant Energy Chairman and CEO Patricia Kampling said:
Alliant Energy is acting today to create a better tomorrow for our customers and communities,” said “We are transforming our energy fleet with an eye on customer cost, carbon reduction and providing cleaner and reliable power to the communities we serve.
One of the most interesting parts of the press release announcing the plan was this:
These actions will enable Alliant Energy to exceed carbon reduction goals pledged originally by the U.S. under the voluntary United Nations Paris Accord. While the Accord calls for reducing carbon 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, Alliant Energy’s plans enable a 40 percent reduction by that time.
It also announced Dubuque community solar garden is the first Envision® Platinum-rated solar project in the nation.
The bottom line is this: Clearly, President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Accord has not stopped the U.S. business community – including utilities directly affected by the greenhouse-gas emission targets – from continuing efforts to make sure those goals are met and (in the case of Alliant Energy, for example) exceeded. And the clean energy revolution, whether that’s wind or solar, is continuing along below the surface without no signs of abating.
Maybe it’s time for the federal government to realize that it’s time to stop fighting rearguard actions to save underperforming and ill-performing coal and nuclear plants. It’s simple really; all they’d have to do is follow Alliant Energy’s lead.