Our Services: Partnership Success Stories

The company:

Badger State Ethanol, LLC, operates a dry-mill ethanol production facility in Monroe, Wisconsin.

The plant started production in October 2002 producing 40 million gallons of ethanol each year. They have continued to increase production and currently produce in excess of 50 million gallons or more of ethanol each year. They also produce 128,000 tons annually of animal feed known as distiller grains.

Site requirements:

In April 2000, John L. Malchine, Chairman and CEO, and Gary L. Kramer, President and General Manager, began searching for a location for an ethanol facility.

The four most important factors to Badger State Ethanol making the decision to locate in Monroe were:

• The availability of corn;
• The rail and highway infrastructure;
• Electric and gas utilities; and
• Water quality.

• Based on these factors, their primary interest was along the southern border of Wisconsin.

  Their next call was to Alliant Energy, where they were placed in contact with the economic development department.

Site solution:

“Because of Alliant Energy's involvement with ethanol developments in other parts of their service territory, they had a quick understanding of what we needed,” Kramer said. “Within a day, they responded with a site in Monroe that could potentially meet our needs. After introducing us to the site and city officials, we knew quickly this site would work.”

With those things determined, the focus turned to incentives. Alliant Energy was able to help through the use of their Shared Savings program.

“Without Alliant Energy's Shared Savings program, I seriously doubt this project would have become a reality,” said Kramer.

Recommendation:

“We would be hard pressed to find a better partner,” Kramer said. “They were there for us from day one and throughout the entire project. They continue to remain in constant communication with us and have been great to work with.”