Alliant Energy Corporation is a public utility

Public utility

A public utility is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service . Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to state-wide government monopolies...

 holding company that incorporated in Madison, Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

 in 1981. It consists of two subsidiaries:

• Interstate Power and Light Company (IPL) is a public utility that generates and distributes electricity
  Electricity
  Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
  
  , and purchases and distributes natural gas
  Natural gas
  Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
  
   in Iowa and Minnesota.

• Wisconsin Power and Light Company (WPL) provides similar services as IPL in Wisconsin.

History

Alliant Energy Corporation is a public utility holding company headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. Alliant Energy's two regulated utilities include Interstate Power and Light Company (IPL) and Wisconsin Power and Light Company (WPL). IPL started in 1925 as the Interstate Power Company (IPC) and which was a consolidation of several small utility companies scattered across northern Iowa and southern Minnesota. IPC merged or consolidated with several other Iowa based utilities before forming IPL, which was later merged with WPL.

IPC expanded greatly in the late 1920s to include operations in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Manitoba (Canada). One of the largest purchases in the late 1920s was the purchase of what became its northern Minnesota territory from the Wilbur Foshay

Wilbur Foshay

Wilbur B. Foshay was an American businessman, who built a fortune buying utilities throughout the Midwest in the early 20th century. Foshay built the Foshay Tower in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which opened in August 1929. In 1932 he was convicted of conducting a "pyramid scheme" with shares of his...

 interests.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the effects of the Depression and passage of laws to regulate utility operations at the state and federal level had an effect on IPC as well as its neighbors. In Iowa, the legislature passed laws making it easier for cities to establish municipal utilities (and indeed, there are over 100 municipal utilities in Iowa today). By 1940, the state of Nebraska had passed laws that forced all investor-owned utilities in that state to sell their operations to one of several "public power districts" operating in that state.

During the 1940s, IPC divested itself of all its operations that were not part of its main territory in southern MN / northern Iowa. The largest chunk of territory was that operating in northeast ND / northern MN / Emerson, Manitoba which was sold in summer 1943 and fall 1944. The SD properties (around Winner) were sold in 1946. It would not be until 1956 when the last isolated district — the area around Waconia, MN — was sold to Northern States Power.

As IPC sold its properties that were isolated from the main system, it picked up others that were adjacent to its system and more easily interconnected: the Eastern Iowa Power system, and the Iowa / Minnesota properties of the Central States Power and Light Corporation.

The Wisconsin operations were sold to Wisconsin Power and Light (ironically, now the eastern half of Alliant's operations).

The other part of IPL — IES Utilities — incorporated in Iowa in 1925 as the Iowa Railway and Light Corporation. IES expanded across that part of Iowa south of IPC's territory, eventually acquiring the Iowa operations of the Union Electric Company

Ameren

Ameren Corporation was created December 31, 1997 by the merger of Missouri's Union Electric Company and the neighboring Central Illinois Public Service Company . It is now a holding company for several power companies and energy companies. The company is based in St...

 of St. Louis, MO.

IES and IPC merged in the mid-1990s to form IPL. Today, IPL provides electricity and gas to communities in Iowa and southern Minnesota; while WPL serves the state of Wisconsin.
In late 2007, Alliant Energy received final approval to sell their utility services in Illinois to Jo-Carroll Energy.

In the 1970s IES constructed the Duane Arnold Energy Center

Duane Arnold Energy Center

The Duane Arnold Energy Center is located on a site on the west bank of the Cedar River, two miles north-northeast of Palo, Iowa, USA, or eight miles northwest of Cedar Rapids. It is Iowa's only nuclear power plant....

, a 615 MW nuclear plant in Palo, Iowa

Palo, Iowa

Palo is a city in Linn County, Iowa, United States. The population was 614 at the 2000 census; a special census in 2006 counted 899 residents. It is part of the Cedar Rapids Metropolitan Statistical Area....

. In 2006, Alliant closed a deal with FPL Energy

Florida Power & Light

Florida Power & Light Company, the principal subsidiary of NextEra Energy Inc. , commonly referred to by its initials, FPL, is a Juno Beach, Florida-based power utility which serves roughly 4.4 million customers in Florida. FPL Group holds power generation assets in more than 20 U.S...

 to sell their stake in the plant.

Alliant Energy also provides several non-regulated services, including ground transportation and energy engineering (such as wind and geothermal energy).

In 2007 it acquired 200 MW Buffalo Creek Wind Farm

Wind farm

A wind farm is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electric power. A large wind farm may consist of several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other...

 at Hampton, Iowa

Hampton, Iowa

Hampton is a city in Franklin County, Iowa, United States. The population was 4,461 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Franklin County...

 from Wind Capital Group

Wind Capital Group

The wind power developer Wind Capital Group was founded in 2005 by Missouri native Tom Carnahan.- Blue Grass Ridge Wind Farm:On January 31st 2006, Wind Capital Group announced the planned construction of Blue Grass Ridge Wind Farm near King City in Gentry County, Missouri. Construction of the 27...

.