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Green is not just the MGE corporate color, it's how we strive to operate our business.
- We help preserve and protect our environment while providing affordable, reliable energy.
- We recognize our responsibility to aggressively prevent pollution, minimize waste and improve our environment.
Everyday business
All MGE employees are part of our Green Team.
- Our ISO 14001-based environmental management system guides our day-to-day decision making. It builds environmental accountability into daily business operations and reaches to the highest levels of our organization.
- We have achieved the Tree Line USA award every year since 1998 for our tree care, tree planting, employee training and public education activities.
- We work with our customers to help them become more energy efficient and provide expertise to help business customers attain LEED certification.
- We are challenging our customers to increase their commitment to conservation. Our Power Tomorrow initiative seeks to decrease the growing rate of customers' electrical demand by half.
Green power
Renewable energy now comprises more than 12% of MGE's energy supply. But thinking "green" is not a new concept for MGE:
- In the late 1970s, we were one of the first utilities in the country to burn refuse-derived fuel (ground up trash) in our power plant boilers.
- Throughout the '70s and '80s, we funded various residential passive and active solar systems on area buildings and converted some of our fleet vehicles to run on cleaner, alternative fuel.
- We partnered with the University of Wisconsin to study the potential carbon sequestration capabilities of native prairie switchgrass, which could also be used as power plant fuel.
- And in 1999, we built the first large-scale wind farm in Wisconsin. Our wind farm in Kewaunee County continues to generate enough electricity to power about 4,000 homes.
- We installed solar PV systems on all the high schools in our service area and worked with area teachers to develop curriculum to teach students about solar power. View live data from these systems and see descriptions of our many other solar demonstration projects on our Web site.
- MGE now owns wind farms in Wisconsin and Iowa and purchases power from additional wind farms as well as customer-owned PV solar installations.
Technology demonstrations
We develop and fund technology demonstration projects to discover and learn about potential energy sources, uses and ways to help our environment.
- Funding and participating in a study to determine the feasibility of a regional manure digester to generate methane for power generation.
- Installed an urban turbine in a local park to evaluate this technology for our urban setting.
- Converted hybrid vehicle to plug-in hybrid to learn how customers may use them and how they impact our business.
- Our parking lot is the site of our innovative stormwater filtration system that tests the efficiency of various filters to clean stormwater before it drains into Lake Monona.
- Worked with Virent Energy Systems to generate power from sugar-based fuels.
- Partnered with local municipalities to generate power from landfill methane.
- Installed a geothermal heat pump to warm a local community center and learn if this technology could reduce our customers’ dependence on fossil fuels.
Greener future
- Visit MGE's climate change Web site at CO2gether.org to track your carbon footprint, learn how to reduce it and share your experience with others in group discussion.
- More than 10% of MGE's residential customers support MGE's efforts to green our electricity grid by participating in Green Power Tomorrow, MGE's voluntary green power program. Business support is growing. See current green powered business customers at Marketplace.
- We have pledged through our Energy 2015 plan to eliminate burning coal from our Blount Generating Station in downtown Madison by the end of 2011. We will replace that source with new, cleaner coal generation at Oak Creek.
For more information
Our Environment
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