MGE Releases Annual Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report

Report features the company's plan to end the use of coal and efforts to achieve net-zero carbon electricity.
 
Madison, Wis., Dec. 17, 2021 – Madison Gas and Electric (MGE) has published its annual Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report detailing its environmental commitment and progress toward the company's goal of net-zero carbon electricity by 2050. The report covers the company's commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion; clean energy investments; plans to end the use of coal; and partnerships to advance energy efficiency, sustainability and the electrification of transportation.

"MGE is committed to building a more sustainable energy future for the benefit of our customers, investors and the broader community," said Chairman, President and CEO Jeff Keebler. "By working with customers to grow our use of clean energy, advance energy efficiency and electrify transportation, we can meet our goal of net-zero carbon by 2050. If we can go further faster through the use of new technologies and partnerships with our customers and communities, we will."
 
Report highlights
The 2021 report features information about MGE's corporate strategy and climate-related matters; safety and operations; metrics and targets; customer and employee engagement; risk management; and governance and oversight. Highlights include:

• MGE expects to achieve carbon reductions of at least 65% by 2030, consistent with global climate science. MGE already has reduced carbon emissions 30% from 2005 levels.
• MGE is decarbonizing its electricity generation, projecting an estimated total of $565 million in nearly 400 megawatts of wind, solar and battery storage between 2015 and 2024.
• As a minority owner, MGE is working with the co-owners of the Columbia Energy Center to retire the coal-fired plant by the end of 2024¹. By 2030, MGE's remaining use of coal is expected to be reduced substantially. We expect to eliminate coal as an energy source by 2035 when the Elm Road Generating Station stops using coal. MGE is a minority owner of Elm Road.
• MGE employees achieved historic safety results in 2020. Despite working through a global pandemic, we recorded our lowest-ever recordable incident rate.
• MGE's electric service reliability is ranked number one in the country for both the fewest number of outages and shortest duration of outages per customer in 2020, according to an annual industry survey.
• MGE earned the Green Master designation in 2021 for the eighth consecutive year from the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council. Only the top 20% of applying companies receive the Green Master designation.
• MGE's philanthropic arm, the MGE Foundation, has given more than $6.7 million to more than 400 community organizations in the last five years.
• MGE is advancing electric transportation with a robust customer education program, a home charging program and a public charging network. MGE also has an electric vehicle fleet goal of 100% all-electric or plug-in hybrid light-duty vehicles by 2030.

Commitment to transparency and disclosure
MGE's report is consistent with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). MGE is committed to helping customers, investors and other stakeholders better understand the company's long-term strategies, challenges and opportunities as it transitions to a more sustainable, net-zero carbon future.

MGE also continues to participate in the Edison Electric Institute's (EEI) environmental, social, governance (ESG) and sustainability-reporting templates. EEI, which represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies, developed the voluntary, industry-specific templates to provide more uniform and consistent reporting of data and information from the electric sector. The templates include data related to MGE's portfolio (generation and capacity), emissions, capital expenditures, human and natural resources, and other matters.
 
About MGE
MGE generates and distributes electricity to 157,000 customers in Dane County, Wis., and purchases and distributes natural gas to 166,000 customers in seven south‐central and western Wisconsin counties. MGE's parent company is MGE Energy, Inc. The company's roots in the Madison area date back more than 150 years.

In June 2022, the co-owners of Columbia announced plans to shift the full retirement of Columbia by 18 months to June 2026. The updated timeline addresses need for capacity as the energy industry, like many industries, experiences supply chain challenges in bringing replacement generation resources online. The updated timeline has no impact on MGE’s carbon reduction goals or aggressive transition to greater use of cleaner energy. MGE is committed to our transition away from coal while maintaining safe, reliable, affordable and sustainable energy to serve our customers.