Renewable Energy

The City of Ames is committed to becoming a more sustainable organization, promoting conservation, and encouraging renewable energy within our community. In the past decade, the Ames Mayor and City Council have made sustainability part of its annual goals. Some major milestones include:

• With support from the Ames City Council, former mayor Ann Campbell joined mayors from across the country in signing the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement. Part of signing the agreement involves conducting a baseline inventory of energy usage, collecting data about energy management, recycling, waste reduction, transportation, and land use. While Ames is working hard on going green, we are encouraging our residents to do the same.
  
  
• Ames Electric Services entered a 20-year purchase power agreement with Garden Wind, LLC. Under the agreement, the City purchases 36MW of power from a wind farm near Zearing, Iowa.
  
  
• Ames Electric Service converted the coal-powered boilers on the Ames Power Plant to natural gas and reduced the output of greenhouse gases by 40 percent annually.
  
  
• Since its beginning, the Ames Electric Services' Smart Energy rebates for business and residential customers has saved thousands of kilowatts of energy and reduced electric consumption across the community.