Recent Press Release

USSHC Joins Alliant Energy’s Second Nature Program

Data center offsets its power use by purchasing an equivalent amount of renewable energy

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – March 24, 2008 – Interstate Power and Light Company (IPL), an Alliant Energy company, announced today that US Secure Hosting Center (USSHC), a colocation data center near Monticello, Iowa, has joined its renewable energy pricing program, Second Nature. 

“We’re very excited to welcome USSHC as a Second Nature participant,” said Tom Aller, Senior Vice President, Energy Delivery. “Supporting renewable energy is good for business. As more people adjust their lifestyles to preserve our natural resources, they are choosing to purchase services and products from companies that use energy efficiently and support the growth of renewable energy.”

USSHC’s unique underground facility houses an Internet Service Provider system that is immune to any kind of disaster – flood, tornado, hurricane or terrorist attack. USSHC enables the servers of its Fortune 500 customers to stay connected, online and fully operational around the clock. The energy-efficient facility has multiple sources of power and several cooling systems so that a mechanical failure will never interrupt server operation.

To promote the use of renewable energy among its customers, USSHC has developed eColo (pronounced ECHO-low). When a USSHC customer enrolls in the eColo program, USSHC in turn buys the equivalent amount of certified renewable energy from the Second Nature program. USSHC customers in the eColo program know that the energy their servers consume, both directly by the servers, and indirectly due to power conditioning, cooling, and facility overhead, has been accounted for and directly offset by the purchase of an equivalent amount of certified renewable energy.

"Alliant Energy's Second Nature program allows us to be a catalyst for change in the data center colocation industry," said Isaac Helgens, Project Director for USSHC. "No other program allows us to make an impact so quickly without making major changes to processes in place.  We are able to reduce our ecological footprint and in doing so give our customers a more efficient alternative. USSHC hopes to set an example in our industry by promoting renewable energy sources as a viable replacement for standard energy."

Utility customers who join Second Nature pay a monthly contribution which covers the added expense of purchasing the renewable wind, solar and biogas energy that replaces energy generated from fossil fuel sources. Currently, more than 15,000 Alliant Energy residential and business customers participate in the Second Nature program.

Approximately 86 percent of the renewable energy purchased by Second Nature is generated from wind farms in Iowa and Minnesota, while 11 percent is generated from burning methane gas at a Wisconsin-based landfill, and 0.2 percent comes from a small solar project in Iowa. An anaerobic digester near Fond du Lac, Wis. provides approximately 2 percent of the renewable energy purchased by the Second Nature program annually.

For more information on Alliant Energy’s Second Nature program, visit alliantenergy.com/secondnature.

Media Contact: Ryan Stensland (319) 786-4171