Amazing Space: A learning lab for solar energy

Alliant Energy's work on the Amazing Space project is the latest in our ongoing partnership with Indian Creek Nature Center. We've been collaborating with the Nature Center for two decades, participating in a number of solar and energy efficiency demonstrations at Indian Creek, including a substantial commitment in 2003 to help install solar panels at the Nature Center's current location. Indian Creek's Amazing Space project is an opportunity for us not only to continue our relationship with this wonderful community resource, but to expand it in a major way.

The way energy is produced and consumed is changing. This transformation requires us to act differently to provide our customers with the energy solutions and options they want. Much like the Amazing Space project, Alliant Energy is working to integrate new and evolving technologies to benefit all of our customers and to maintain system reliability.

Alliant Energy will own and operate a solar array at the new Amazing Space facility. It will produce energy equivalent to the facility's total annual electric usage by generating more power while the sun is shining to offset times when power from the electric system is needed. This is an exciting opportunity for our company and a great way to partner with the Nature Center on its goal of sustainable building.

Energy efficiency will play an important role in the project. In many cases, energy efficiency is less expensive than producing and delivering electricity. By designing an efficient Amazing Space facility, we can reduce the size of the solar array it requires. To do that, the Nature Center team worked with Alliant Energy's Commercial New Construction program to build energy efficiency wherever possible. With the extra focus on energy efficiency, the energy needed to power Amazing Space will be significantly lower, or less than half what it would be if the facility were built to standard energy codes.

Alliant Energy customers and all visitors to the Indian Creek Nature Center will benefit from new learning opportunities with this installation. For example, the public will be able to view the Nature Center's energy usage patterns through a real-time website portal. And a hands-on exhibit will be available on site for visitors to interact with the solar installation.

OUR HISTORY OF RENEWABLE ENERGY

Renewable energy is already part of Alliant Energy's portfolio, and has been since our renewable efforts began with hydroelectricity over a century ago. For decades, we've also been buying renewable energy from others. We purchase some of this power through agreements with large energy developers, but we've also been buying it from those of our customers who choose to produce energy from wind and solar installations at their homes.

More than 13,000 customers participate in our Second Nature program, which supports electricity generated from renewable sources. And through a dedicated team that assists with renewable-energy installations, we've already helped more than 1,300 customers install generation to power their homes, schools and businesses.

In 2008, we built our first wind farm, and since then we've invested more than $1 billion in wind capacity, enough to power more than 300,000 homes. Based on current economics, wind still dominates Alliant Energy's renewable landscape, but solar is the fastest growing energy resource across the industry.

A RESEARCH AND LEARNING TOOL

Our partnership with Indian Creek Nature Center is one of several solar initiatives that will help Alliant Energy learn the best ways to integrate more solar energy into our system.

Every solar installation needs to be customized based on several factors ranging from the slope of a roof to the location of nearby trees. The solar lab at Amazing Space will feature several configurations of solar panels. Some will be stationary on the ground and the roof; others will track the sun as it moves across the sky.

Generating reliable solar energy depends on the availability and intensity of the sun - the electronic devices we use every day can't operate properly without a consistent power source. As a result, customers still need to supplement their solar energy with power from the electric system. With the real-time information from Amazing Space, which will tell us how various panel configurations affect solar production, we'll be able to identify what works best in our service area to keep the electric system in balance. We expect that information to be very useful to our customers in the coming years.

Learning more about these patterns and demands on the electric system is one of the reasons we are so excited about our partnership with the Nature Center. Alliant Energy has provided safe and reliable electricity for a long time, and as renewable energy installations become more common, we want to ensure we continue to do so in a reliable and cost-effective way for the benefit of all our customers.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

The Nature Center's mission of promoting a sustainable future fits with Alliant Energy's vision of providing energy solutions and choices to our customers. To drive these goals further and reap all the learning opportunities Amazing Space offers, we are also working with two of the universities in our state.

Industrial design students from the University of Iowa engineered a hands-on exhibit for Amazing Space that is now in production. The exhibit will allow users to move or cover small sections of a panel to see how these changes affect performance. We are also looking to partner with engineering students from Iowa State University to collect and analyze data from each of the Amazing Space panels. The data will help us find efficiencies, and ultimately improve how solar energy is generated in Iowa.

Indian Creek Nature Center is opening doors to new and innovative possibilities that can inspire future generations to continue to use energy more efficiently and make a positive impact on the environment.

Amazing Space will help us and our customers learn more about solar energy and assist us in driving our communities' sustainability efforts forward. At Alliant Energy, we're excited to be a part of this amazing project.

' Doug Kopp is President of Alliant Energy's Iowa utility.