Cities Win Energy Makeovers

Two South Dakota cities are among four communities that will soon see some relief in their own energy bills, thanks to energy makeovers courtesy of Heartland Consumers Power District.

Heartland, a wholesale power provider located in Madison, S.D., gave away energy makeovers to four of their customer cities on June 15, 2010. More than 90 percent of Heartland customers applied for the makeovers and each applicant's name was placed in a hat for a drawing at the fifth annual Heartland Invitational. Heartland Communications Manager Ann Hyland and Customer Relations Manager Steve Moses randomly selected four names. The winners included Tyndall and Colman, S.D., as well as New Ulm and Lake Crystal, Minn.
Those cities will each receive up to $20,000 in improvements to public buildings such as city hall, the local community center or fire hall. Heartland will work with each city to identify the buildings most in need of the makeovers and energy audits will be performed to determine the greatest potential for energy savings.

"Cities often have limited budgets and don't have extra resources available to make improvements to the buildings they work in every day," said Hyland. "This is an opportunity for them to make needed improvements and save on their own energy bills."

"For the residential makeover, we'll look at things such as the age of the home, square footage, age of appliances and average energy bills," said Hyland. "Taking a whole-house approach to energy efficiency results in the greatest savings and the home energy makeover is an excellent educational tool for all homeowners to see the benefits of those improvements."

Heartland is a non-profit, public power utility providing wholesale electric power and energy to cities, state agencies and one cooperative in South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.

Information provided by Heartland Consumers Power District
June 2010