Consultant says a Decorah municipal electric utility would save customers over $5 million a year

A large crowd packed Decorah City Hall Tuesday night to hear Decorah Power's presentation about the projected costs of operating a municipal electric utility.

Consultant Dave Berg, an affiliate of NewGen Strategies and Solutions, gave a 32-slide presentation that summarized the feasibility study.  He placed the value of Alliant Energy facilities in Decorah at $5 million and start-up costs of a municipal utility at $2 million.

While the rate for a kilowatt of power would be affected by many factors, Berg said it would average 9 cents, compared with Alliant's average of 13 cents.  That seems like a small amount, but it's multiplied by 126 million kilowatts of energy used in Decorah, producing $5.3 million in energy cost savings this first year of operation for a municipal utility and $5.8 million by the tenth year.

"Alliant has the highest rates in the state," said Berg as he summarized his portion of Tuesday's presentation.

The full feasibility report has been posted at: https://decorahpower.org/