Washington D.C., March 24, 2021— Heartland Consumers Power District earned a 2021 Award of Continued Excellence (ACE) today from the American Public Power Association’s Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments (DEED) program.
The award recognizes continued commitment to the DEED program and its ideals, including support of research, development and demonstration, improving efficiency, renewable resources, and support of public power. The award was presented during the APPA’s virtual Engineering & Operations Technical Conference.
“Heartland is a recognized champion of the DEED program and a leader when it comes to delivering cutting-edge services to its members,” said American Public Power Association Vice President of Technical and Operations Services Alex Hofmann. “They have built tools that have not only benefited their members but also the broader public power community.”
Heartland has been a DEED member since 1987 and extends its DEED membership to all its utility members and actively promotes DEED programs to their customers. Heartland has benefited from sponsoring four interns with scholarships, which included projects that ranged from performing customer research to evaluating the effect of economic development incentives to creating a renewable energy calculator. Heartland won an Energy Innovator Award in 2020 for the renewable energy calculator created during two of its internships and participated in two DEED webinars to share how to use the calculator with others.
Heartland has long demonstrated a commitment to energy efficiency and conservation. They launched their energy efficiency program, Power Forward, in 2009. As a wholesale power supplier, Heartland provides rebates to residential and commercial customers within customer communities for energy efficiency upgrades. Heartland also provides energy efficiency grants to customers who make energy efficient upgrades to city facilities. Heartland has assisted with the upgrade of more than 2,000 streetlights to LED.
Heartland continues to investigate new methods and systems to improve utility operations and help its utility members to operate more efficiently, such as by funding meter upgrades and investing in forecasting software and other tools to provide cost savings to its utility customers.
For more information about DEED, visit www.PublicPower.org/DEED-Awards.