CFU Provides Reliable, Affordable and Sustainable Power
As a public power utility, CFU's focus is to provide our community with reliable, affordable and sustainable power.
Today, most of the electricity we provide to customers is purchased through a regional energy market. The energy generated by nearly all of the wind turbines, solar panels and fuel-dependent plants in Iowa flows into the power market pool daily.
This includes our local Streeter Station power plant, natural gas turbines, solar array and our share of large power plants in western Iowa.
Cedar Falls Benefits from Regional Renewable Energy
Our community is fortunate to benefit from abundant wind and solar energy in our region. This makes the regional energy market largely renewable and the most cost effective choice for CFU customers on most days.
Today, 61% of the energy produced in the regional power market and distributed in Cedar Falls is generated from renewable resources.
While we welcome more renewable energy in the market, it remains important to provide reliable, affordable energy when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.
Generation to Maintain Reliability
Traditional generation from fuel-dependent plants remains a key component in today's energy market and provides reliable, affordable energy when renewables are not available.
CFU maintains our traditional power plants and gas turbines to supplement the renewable energy on the market. However, these assets are aging.
As we look to the future, CFU will continue to provide our community with renewable energy when it is abundant but will need traditional generation to quickly provide efficient backup energy.
Electric Generation for the Future
CFU is advancing plans to build a new energy center in Cedar Falls. The Viking Energy Center will be located south of Viking Road and east of Union Road in the Industrial Park and will take several years to construct.
The energy center will be equipped to ramp up or down quickly to meet demand and adjust to the renewable energy supply. Additionally, the technology is more efficient and produces lower emissions levels than our existing power plants.
Cedar Falls Utilities serves a wide range of customers and energy planning is based on the needs of the entire system. The new Viking Energy Center is not a reaction to any single customer or industry trend. To continue delivering the reliable and affordable power our customers expect, we must invest in new energy infrastructure.
As you may have noticed in the news, the City of Cedar Falls is currently considering zoning changes to accommodate additional cryptocurrency mining operations. At Cedar Falls Utilities, our role isn’t to advocate for or against this change, but to serve our community reliably and respond to its needs.
The Viking Energy Center reflects years of planning to meet our community’s future energy needs, independent of any cryptocurrency mining activity.
The Viking Energy Center will enable CFU to deliver the next generation of energy — sustainable, reliable and affordable — positioning us for a strong future. Learn more at cfu.net/generation.