MidAmerican Energy Co which is owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc began investing in wind power about 15 years ago to both hedge against volatile fuel prices and generate more pollutant-free power.
It will become the first U.S. investor-owned utility to source 100 percent of its customers’ electricity needs from renewable energy when it completes a $922 million wind farm in 2020. The company, based in Des Moines, Iowa, serves 770,000 electric customers.
With the completion of the utility’s twelfth wind project, MidAmerican will generate enough renewable energy to equal the amount consumed by customers in its Iowa service territory. Because of the intermittency of electricity generated by wind, the utility will continue to use its existing natural gas, nuclear and coal-fired power plants