Success Stories

Alliant Energy provides electricity and natural gas to 83 of Iowa’s 99 counties. Ottumwa is the company’s regional hub for southern Iowa. Alliant Energy employs over 100 people between the operations center and Ottumwa generating station.

The energy company works closely with the communities it serves to plan for future development. It also gives back to these communities, offering beneficial community grants and educational programming.

As an energy provider for the Ottumwa area, Alliant Energy is a key partner in area economic development. “The more businesses we help bring to town, the more the energy costs are spread out for all customers, which allows us to be more efficient and cost effective with our rates,” explains David Vollmar, key account manager for the Ottumwa area.

Alliant Energy provides technical assistance to local economic development groups to ensure there’s adequate energy available for companies looking at locating to an area. It also assists economic developers with finding funding for labor shed and housing studies and for marketing efforts.

Beyond providing energy and helping with economic development projects, Vollmar notes that Alliant Energy is “quite involved with the communities we are privileged to serve,” both through its foundation and other initiatives like the Hometown Rewards program.

The Alliant Energy Foundation gives grants to community nonprofits in three specific areas: helping families, education and the environment. Vollmar says the foundation is particularly interested in funding Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programming. Indian Hills Community College received a grant for its recent summer STEM camp for youth.

In February, 2018, Ottumwa began participating in the company’s Hometown Rewards program, which has the goal of reducing community-wide energy usage. Alliant Energy provided funds to Greater Ottumwa Partners in Progress (GOPIP) to hire part-time staff to spearhead this effort in Ottumwa.

Since her hire, Stacie Manary, Ottumwa Hometown Rewards Coordinator, has been educating both residents and businesses about ways to improve energy efficiency through rebate programs and energy audits. Activities have included light bulb exchange days (where people brought in in old bulbs and receive new LED replacements), appliance recycling, air conditioning tuneups, and increased insulation. Alliant Energy offers rebates for many of these options.

The initiative’s goal is to reduce energy consumption by 4% over the course of two years. Already ahead of the curve, when Ottumwa effectively meets its goals by April, 2020, it will receive $25,000 in grant funding to invest in energy-saving projects. “In Ottumwa, our steering committee has selected our projects to include replacing city Christmas lights and bridge lighting with new LED bulbs” says TJ Heller, GOPIP CEO.