Ames Saves Money, Power With Smart Energy

Steve Wilson, City of Ames energy services coordinator, better known as The Energy Guy, worked with his office lights out July 20.

Ames' demand for power peaks in the warm summer months and July 18 and July 19 brought record temperatures and a record demand for power across the city. The city's peak energy demand broke records for two consecutive days despite warnings from the municipally owned utility urging residents to conserve. Ames Electric Services hit a peak demand of 128,200 kilowatts on July 18 and 128,600 kilowatts on July 19.

If Ames hit an energy peak for the third day in a row it wouldn't be Wilson's fault. Not only did he work in darkened office, the city sent out an alert for a third day urging residents to conserve energy, saving themselves and the city money and it worked. July 20 passed without another record. 

Each time a new peak demand is set, the city is one step closer to considering increasing the capacity of the municipal power plant, said Donald Kom, Ames Electric Services director.

“With every new peak we get closer and closer to that decision point where we are going to need new capacity,” Kom said. 

Each new peak raises the energy generating capacity that the utility must be ready to supply just in case Ames residents ask for it.

The plant is rated for 152,000 kilowatts so they still have some room, Wilson said.

The previous peak demand record was 126,200 set in July of 2006. Kom said that tells him there hasn't been a whole lot of growth in demand the past five years.

The energy demand might coincide with the city's program launched five years ago.

The city began offering the programs in 2007 not so much to conserve energy but because residents were demanding energy rebate programs like those offered by neighboring for-profit and coop utilities, Wilson said.

At the time the city studied what programs might work best and discovered that offering rebates would save the city the expense of expanding power plant operations, he said.

“We would spend less money over time enticing people to save energy than we would to build a new generator to provide it,” he said.

The city has spent almost $4 million on energy education and rebate programs, saving the city abut $8.7 million in electric generation costs, Wilson said. It costs twice as much to build energy than it does to save it, he said.

The city has a range of programs in four areas: education, renewable energy acquisition, demand-side management and load management. Electric Services tries to educate residents about the importance of saving power and offers rebates for everything from the purchase of new appliances to compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Rebates range from $2 per lightbulb all the way up to $700 for various air conditioning systems.

Wilson said the programs have saved the city about 8.6 million kilowatt hours of energy, enough power to generate electricity for 1,100 homes for an entire year.  That equates to reducing 7,081 tons of carbon dioxide that didn't go into the atmosphere.

Ames Power Plant was built in 1949 when the population of the town was just under 23,000 people. The city has added three generators since but doesn't use the plant's first generator or the second generator added in 1958, Wilson said. Power plants are typically expected to last 50 years, but can last much longer if they are well maintained, Wilson said.

Today the plant serves 21,263 residential customers, 2,543 small commercial customers, 420 large commercial customers and three industrial customers. The numbers fluctuate as people move in and out of town. 

The city pays close attention to the peak demand records because the utility is required to have the ability to provide 106 percent of the peak energy load, said Susan Gwiasda, Ames public relations officer.

Wilson said the utility explores various options on how to move forward. It could add a new generator, buy more power from the grid, make enhancements to extend the generators the city has today or even to close the power plant and buy all its electricity from the grid. City Council would ultimately have to approve any decisions made. And of course residents would have the opportunity to voice their opinions at hearings.

Currently the plant houses seven generators but uses four. The oldest generators are not used and two more are used in backup situations. The utility also buys power off the market on a daily basis if its cheaper than producing it here in Ames, Wilson said.