"Get Energized, Iowa" Hits Eastern Iowa

By Addison Speck, Reporter

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By Jay Knoll

Story Created: Feb 17, 2012 at 12:26 AM CDT

Story Updated: Feb 17, 2012 at 12:26 AM CDT

DIKE, Iowa - Four Eastern Iowa towns are competing to conserve energy in a first of its kind competition. It's called "Get Energized, Iowa!"

Dike, Hudson, Fairbank and Readlyn are participating in the project to "go green" and save some green.

“The goal is you want to save energy in your house and in turn it saves energy for your community,” said Michael Soppe, Mayor of Dike.

“The first step is we just want you to fill out a simple survey with questions about your house and how efficient it is, just to kind of educate and inform people,” Soppe said.

Town leaders want this competition to teach people that saving energy is more than just turning off the lights.

“Changing to the CFL light bulbs, it’s amazing what a difference there is with that,” said Sue Theisen, of Hudson Municipal Electric, “turning the heat down, during the day while you are gone or at night when you are sleeping.”

Leaders said a lot of companies do free energy audits, where they will come to your home and tell you what you could fix. Some residents, like Carol Kelley, are already ahead of the game.

“We have a thermostat that automatically turns down at 10:30 every night,” said Kelley, “we keep the lights shut off as much as possible because it’s just the two of us.”

The Iowa Policy Project is the lead organizer of the competition. Many factors determine the winner, including energy reduction. But no matter who wins, leaders hope the thrill of competition shows residents how easy and beneficial saving energy can be.

“You are going to save money, not only on your bill but if you get your community to do it, it saves us peak hours when you buy it and all that good stuff. So in return we can give you that energy at a lower cost,” Soppe said.

“Any energy savings translates to dollars,” said Theisen, “the less we have to buy to serve our customers, of course, the cheaper we can keep our rates we don’t need to build another power plant on our grid.”

The year-long contest started January 1. The prize is still undecided but leaders said it will be something energy related that the entire community will benefit from. “It’s just an eye opener, you see that it’s simple steps to save energy and it’s silly not to,” Soppe said.

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