Alliant plans 2026 launch of new battery storage facility

Alliant Energy is moving forward with its proposed project to store renewable energy in batteries near the company’s retired coal plant in Lansing, giving it more capacity to use the power at peak demand times.

The battery storage facility, which the utility said would be operational by the end of 2026, is anticipated to have capacity for up to 280 megawatts, enough to power about 47,500 homes a day, according to the Iowa Environmental Council.

Currently, Alliant owns and operates four other energy storage facilities in Iowa. They include a 2.5 megawatt facility in Decorah, a 5 megawatt facility in Cedar Rapids, a 672 kilowatt facility in Wellman and one Marshalltown with 250 kilowatts of energy capacity.

Alliant, which held a public information meeting March 19 about the Lansing project with the Iowa Utilities Commission, said the land needed for the project already is owned and controlled by Alliant and the company would not need eminent domain authority.

Alliant, a subsidiary of Interstate Power and Light, initially filed its generating certificate in late February. Alliant spokesperson Morgan Hawk said the company will submit its application for the project to the commission in the coming weeks” but a date has not been finalized. He said it will be submitted in late April at the earliest.

A spokesperson for the regulatory board said that a generation certification from the commission is required under Iowa law for any storage facility over 25 megawatts, regardless of whether the facility is generating the energy itself or not.

Although the battery storage site is proposed to be constructed at the site of the decommissioned Lansing station, Hawk said specifics relating to its size and exact location would be included in Alliant’s application.

According to a presentation by Alliant at the March 19 meeting, the battery storage project is an avenue to look “for new ways to serve customers and build stronger communities.” The company said the facility would enable “new projects to deliver greater efficiency at a more cost-effective value for our customers.”

Alliant said the project would help strengthen the company’s portfolio and improve reliability to meet customer needs.

In terms of a timeline, the company plans to start its “engineering” period this year and into 2026. It plans to start construction by the beginning of 2026 and start operations by the end of 2026.

Battery storage is used to store clean energy generated through solar and wind in batteries so it can be used at a later time. The Lansing facility will use lithium iron phosphate batteries to store the generated energy.

Coal-fired plant decommissioned

Before plans were launched to transform the site into a battery storage operation, Alliant Energy’s coal-fired Lansing Generating System operated for nearly 75 years along the Mississippi in Northeast Iowa.

But the company announced it would close the plant in October 2020, according to its Clean Energy Blueprint report, taking hundreds of megawatts of energy generation out of the region’s power grid.

Demolition of the plant started two years ago, after the company began retiring the plant through a series of implosions, the first of which took place in October 2023.

Support of the project

Jim Martin-Schramm works as a policy analyst in Winneshiek County with the Clean Energy Districts of Iowa, a nonprofit that works to strengthen clean energy use in Iowa.

In general, Martin-Schramm said organization is supportive of the project.

“Battery energy storage is a way to make renewable energy more dispatchable through storage and battery systems,” Martin-Schramm said. “There is a lot of excess power, especially at night, from all of the wind energy. So if that can be stored and utilized during more peak periods of the day, that's good.”

Martin-Schramm said the organization also supports the project because Allamakee County — which is where the retired coal plant and the incoming battery storage facility is located — took a hit economically after the coal plant shuttered.

“The closure of the last power plant had an impact on the local economy and will impact the tax base eventually,” he said. “The investment in the county will help the county's tax base and that’s important. So, we support it for that reason as well.”

Although the nonprofit does support the project, Martin-Schramm said the support isn’t unconditional. He said that there is concern the project won’t be cost-effective for Alliant ratepayers, who Martin-Schramm said already are paying too much.

“It will be key for the company to make this sort of investment in a way that addresses customer affordability and minimizes the expense of the project,” Martin-Schramm said. “We support the project as long as it is cost effective to Iowa ratepayers and Alliant ratepayers.”

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

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Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com