Alliant Energy is continuously supporting innovation in infrastructure (SDG 9), including ways to combine renewable electricity generation with agricultural practices. We have partnered with the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Iowa State University (ISU) on two unique agricultural research projects to better understand the opportunities of agrivoltaics. Agrivoltaics promotes sustainable agriculture (SDG 2) by using land for both agriculture and solar panels.
The UW-Madison and ISU projects will generate enough electricity at their peaks to power 450 and 230 homes respectively, promote academic and community awareness of agrivoltaics, explore economic impacts and allow for further research to enhance the technology.
These research initiatives exemplify the strong public-private partnerships (SDG 17) within the communities we serve. The collaboration between ISU’s intellectual resources and our energy infrastructure expertise was noted as a key reason for the project’s receipt of a $1.8 million grant from the Department of Energy.