A total of 48 acres of land in a once-remote corner of Cedar Falls are set to become a gas power plant after the city council voted to rezone the land and convey the parcel to Cedar Falls Utilities (CFU) at its June 15 meeting.
The move marks the local approval of a project, which has been discussed since 2022. CFU must now bring the project before the Iowa Utilities Commission.
Known as the Viking Energy Center, the $80 million power plant will initially consist of two gas-powered reciprocating engines able to produce a combined 37 megawatts of power.
The site has space for future expansions of the plant.
CFU General Manager Susan Abernathy said power providers are concerned over a historic surge in demand for electricity, and the project is necessary to provide the city with energy independence as the nation’s electrical grid is strained.
“If push comes to shove with local generation, we can be islanded; we can take care of ourselves without having to worry about catastrophes on the larger grid,” she said during a presentation to the city council.
Abernathy tied the challenges to “load growth” from data center development and Iowa’s energy makeup, which is over 60% renewable.
This leads to price spikes “when there’s no wind and no sun,” she said. The new plant will serve as backup generation during such events.
Concerns over the grid’s reliability go beyond Cedar Falls. Abernathy pointed to nearly a dozen regional utilities planning similar backup gas generation projects, including Ames Municipal Utilities, Muscatine Power & Water and Alliant Energy.
A group of Cedar Falls residents have urged the utility to shift from gas power to renewable sources or battery technology. During public comment, resident Kamyar Enshayan said renewable sources would prove more reliable long term.
“Iowa's native sources of energy are the sun and the wind and a culture of conservation, and the more we invest in them in our town's generation capacity, the more we learn about them and understand them, the more energy secure we will be,” he said.
Despite those concerns, the council voted unanimously to support the project on its first reading. It's sited in the West Viking Road Industrial Park, which was launched by the city in 2022.
At a prior stage, the Viking Energy Center attracted proposals for a cryptocurrency mine at the site, but the city Planning & Zoning Commission banned such development from using the Public Zoning District, which now encompasses CFU’s parcel.
Cryptocurrency mines and data centers remain allowed elsewhere in Cedar Falls.
