Alliant (LNT) Cuts Emissions, to Build 210 MW Iowa Wind Farm
Alliant Energy LNT announced its plans to produce more wind energy from Iowa and entered into an agreement with Invenergy for development of the 210-megawatt (MW) Richland Wind Farm in Sac County, IA. Per the agreement, it will construct as well as own the wind farm.
Richland Wind Farm is part of Alliant Energy's plan to add 1,000 MW of new wind generation for Iowa customers by the end of 2020 to provide enough power to 430,000 homes. The Richland Wind Farm is the fifth and final wind project, and part of the company’s $1.8 billion investment in wind energy for Iowa.
Alliant’s Long-Term Plans
Alliant Energy is investing to develop renewable energy, and has plans to add wind projects not only in Iowa but also in southern Minnesota and Wisconsin. All new wind projects are expected to begin commercial production by the end of 2020 and add nearly 1,200 MW of clean energy to Alliant’s generation portfolio.
Apart from owing and operating wind farms in the regions, the company also entered into long-term contracts with other wind farms in the region to purchase nearly 500 MW of wind energy on a yearly basis.
The investments in renewable electricity generation will aid Alliant Energy to lower carbon-di-oxide emission levels from 2005 by 40% within 2030 across its entire service territory.
Alliant Energy has plans to invest nearly $5.4 billion during the 2018-2021 time frame. Post 2021, within the 2022-2026 time frame, the company plans to invest nearly $5 billion to strengthen its electric and natural gas distribution, and generation portfolio. The company is successfully completing major construction projects on time and at or below budget.
What’s in Store?
Per a current release from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the cost of producing electricity from wind farms dropped quite significantly due to development of new technology and usage of domestically manufactured wind turbines.
Courtesy of the drop-in costs and government backing, we expect that electricity production from wind farms will continue to grow in the next few years. The EIA report also indicates the same and projects wind capacity to increase from 88 Gigawatt (GW) at the end of 2017 to 94 GW at 2018-end and 104 GW by the end of 2019. With the rising demand for cleaner energy, utilities like NextEra Energy NEE and Duke Energy DUK, among others, are investing millions of dollars to strengthen their renewable power generation assets.
We believe that Alliant Energy’s decision to provide cost-competitive wind energy for customers will act as a tailwind in the long run.
Price Movement
In the past six months, shares of Alliant Energy have gained 7.8%, outperforming its industry’s rally of 1.4%.
Zacks Rank and A Key Pick
Alliant Energy currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock in the same space is Algonquin Power & Utilities AQN, sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Algonquin Power pulled off an average four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 28.56%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2018 has moved up 8.2% in the past 60 days to 66 cents per share. Its earnings are expected to grow 8.0% over the long-term (3-5 year) period.
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