Energy Department Closes $5.1 Billion Loan Package for Alliant to Expand Generation
Key Facts
The U.S. Department of Energy has closed a $5.1 billion loan package for Alliant Energy to fund projects expanding electricity generation and strengthening the grid in Iowa and Wisconsin, the department said on October 28, 2026. The loans support construction of new natural gas-fired plants and energy storage systems, as well as upgrades to existing generation facilities. The department expects the projects to provide more than 2.6 gigawatts of new or upgraded capacity, enough for about 1.8 million homes. It said construction will create hundreds of project-related jobs. The package is final financing following the department’s announcement of conditional commitments in January 2025, and expands the projects’ scope to include natural gas alongside clean energy and storage.
Gregory Beard, director of the department’s Office of Financing, said bringing reliable new generation online “strengthens national energy security and lowers electricity costs for households and businesses in Iowa and Wisconsin.” Alliant, in turn, expects the package to deliver cumulative savings of up to $1.2 billion for customers over loans with a 30-year term. It also said more than 1,600 local jobs will be created during construction. The company serves about 1,010,000 electricity customers and 435,000 natural gas customers in the two states, according to its announcement on October 12, 2026. Reuters noted, however, that any potential decline in electricity bills could take years to materialize, given that the loans extend over decades.
The financing dates back to January 16, 2025, when the department announced two conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling more than $3 billion to support projects in Iowa and Wisconsin. The department estimated at the time that the projects would add about 2,000 megawatts of clean energy and storage over the following decade. It said financing under the conditional commitments would carry interest rates below traditional capital-markets financing, and that the savings could help Alliant provide affordable power to about one million electricity customers. The commitments remained conditional until the department and the company met technical, legal, environmental and financial requirements, before completing the financing documents and disbursing the loan guarantees. The package now closed also covers natural gas, a shift from the earlier focus on emerging clean-energy and alternative-vehicle projects, as Reuters described it.
The agency that managed the earlier commitments now operates as the Office of Energy Dominance Financing, while retaining the duties and authorities assigned to the Loan Programs Office under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. As of September 30, 2026, the department said the office had issued $132 billion in loans and loan guarantees, along with $47.5 billion in conditional commitments. Those figures reflect the scale of the federal energy-financing portfolio that Alliant’s package joins. The company’s second-quarter data provide context on its asset base and sources of earnings: it said higher revenue requirements resulting from growth in the asset base added $0.09 per share at both Interstate Power & Light and Wisconsin Power & Light. Reported earnings per share were $0.65 in the second quarter of 2026, compared with $0.68 in the same quarter of 2025.
Alliant said higher earnings from project investments and increased retail electricity and gas sales after adjusting for the effects of temperature supported its second-quarter results. These were offset by higher operations and maintenance, financing and depreciation expenses. The company’s shares, which trade under the ticker LNT, closed at $70.04 on October 27, 2026. The company is scheduled to report third-quarter results on October 29 after the market closes. It has scheduled an earnings review call for October 30 at 9 a.m. Central Time. The results will be the company’s first scheduled financial update since the loan package closed.