Alliant Energy has partnered with privately owned energy company Invenergy to build the 210-megawatt Richland Wind Farm in Iowa’s Sac County.
The wind farm will be Alliant Energy’s fifth and final part of the utility’s plan to add 1,000 megawatts of new wind generation in Iowa.
It is set for completion by early 2020 and is expected to generate enough energy for 80,000 average Iowa homes a year.
The Richland Wind Farm is part of Alliant’s $1.8 billion investment in wind power. The plan will reduce the company’s carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels.
Other Alliant wind farms in Iowa include Upland Prairie Wind Farm in Clay and Dickinson counties, and English Farms Wind Farm in Poweshiek County.
Nearly two-fifths of Iowa’s net electricity generation comes from renewable resources, almost entirely from wind. Iowa’s wind resources place it among the nation’s leading states in the percentage of in-state electricity generation from renewable resources other than hydroelectric power. In 2016, wind energy powered more than one-third of Iowa’s net electricity generation, the highest share of any state, and only Texas and Oklahoma surpassed Iowa in the total amount of electricity generated from wind.