Heartland hosts open house, ribbon cutting
By Staff
Heartland Consumers Power District is celebrating the grand opening of its new headquarters facility with events scheduled Tuesday through Thursday. The facility is expected to be South Dakota's first newly constructed LEED Platinum building.
On Tuesday, Sen. Tim Johnson will visit Heartland for a tour. A reception for Heartland customers will be held on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. with Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard providing the keynote address at 4:30 p.m. The public is invited to an open house Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with guided tours available from 10 a.m. to noon.
A program will be held at 12:15 p.m. with South Dakota State University President Dr. David Chicoine providing the keynote address. A ribbon-cutting with the Madison Chamber of Commerce will follow.
Heartland is a non-profit, public power utility providing wholesale electric power and energy to customers in South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.
"This facility has turned out to be everything I hoped it would be and more. We are proud of our investment in the Madison community and happy to continue to call this community home," said Heartland General Manager Mike McDowell.
Heartland invited Daugaard and Chicoine to speak because of their longtime partnerships with both the state of South Dakota and SDSU. Most notable, through an agreement with the state, Heartland provides power to six state institutions, including SDSU. By contract, all energy sold to SDSU is renewable via Heartland's investment in the Wessington Springs Wind Energy Center.
According to McDowell, working with the state and university has been rewarding.
"Heartland has been a longtime partner of the state," he said. "With the addition of the Wessington Springs Wind Energy Center to our power supply portfolio, we amended our agreement to ensure all power provided to both of South Dakota's flagship universities is renewable. We are very proud of our investment in this wind farm and our partnership with the state."
Heartland also provides annual engineering scholarships to students at SDSU and recently partnered with the university and the University National Parks Energy Partnership Program to sponsor a PV design-build project at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The project provided SDSU electrical engineering students with a design-build experience that successfully demonstrated renewable energy technology and resulted in financial savings for the park.
Heartland's new headquarters facility was designed and built to achieve LEED Platinum Certification. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is administered by the U.S. Green Building Council and is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED recognizes performance in five key areas, including sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. A series of credits are available within the five areas and certification is obtained at Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum.
Heartland announced plans to build the new, environmentally friendly headquarters in April 2008. At the same time, they announced the sale of their old facility in Madison to the South Dakota Association of Rural Water Systems. Heartland has been in its new headquarters since January.
©Madison Daily Leader 2010