DES MOINES, IOWA (October 26, 2023) — MidAmerican Energy recently released a news statement claiming to have served Iowans with 100% renewable energy in 2022. The news release did not mention the six coal plants that MidAmerican Energy owns in Iowa.
While publicly touting a 100% renewable-energy vision through these media statements and paid advertising using rate-payer dollars, MidAmerican Energy is operating one of the largest coal-fleets in the country. Nearly a quarter of the utility's energy generation (23%) still comes from coal.
Although MidAmerican has invested in low-cost wind energy and grown its renewable-energy portfolio, the utility has not retired older, more costly generation. This has led to an overproduction of energy that generates profits for the utility at the expense of Iowa rate-payers. In 2022 alone, 38% of MidAmerican's energy generation was sold to other utilities while polluting Iowa's skies, waterways, and farmland.
Read the full press release in IEC's newsroom. Then learn more about our campaign to Flip the Switch, where we dig deeper into utility planning and how it impacts our energy rates, and show you what you can do to ensure Iowa utilities provide clean, reliable generation at fair, reasonable rates.
