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Secretary Wright Delivers Remarks at Alliant Energy's Natural Gas Plant as DOE Announces a $5.1 Billion Loan, Oct. 28, 2026

October 29, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:17:57

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

An Alliant Energy executive opened the event at the company’s West Riverside facility, saying, as he stated it, that the plant opened in 2020 and can serve more than 500,000 homes, and that Alliant’s nearby liquefied natural gas facility holds 2 billion cubic feet — enough, as he stated it, to run the Riverside plants for 10 days. He announced that the Department of Energy had offered Alliant a $5.1 billion federal loan opportunity, which he said would translate into up to $1.2 billion in savings for customers and would fund generation upgrades, new generation, battery storage, and the LNG facility, all as he stated it.

Greg Baird, who said he runs the department’s Energy Dominance Financing office, said, as he stated it, that the office asks first how to deliver affordable, reliable baseload energy, in contrast to what he described as the prior administration’s single focus on carbon emissions. Representative Bryan Steil of Wisconsin said, as he stated it, that affordable energy from the plant supports Wisconsin manufacturing competitiveness, and that LNG storage lets the utility buy gas in the off-season rather than at spot prices on the coldest days.

Secretary Wright said, as he stated it, that when the administration entered the Department of Energy, no one had evaluated the cost or security impact of the billions committed before, and he criticized energy policies in Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Germany, and California as examples of treating energy as a political tool rather than a service, all as he characterized them. He said the Alliant projects won a competition for limited taxpayer funds on the math, as he stated it: producing LNG in the heartland, a thousand miles from any body of water, to store enough gas for days — ten days, as he stated it — so customers keep affordable heat and electricity at peak demand. He noted the 250-megawatt generator behind the speakers as an example of energy density, as he stated it.

Why it matters

A $5.1 billion federal loan for a Wisconsin utility is the Energy Dominance Financing model in action: the administration says affordability and reliability, not emissions, are the first tests for energy lending, and it put a specific customer-savings figure on this deal.

Scoreboard watch

The figures announced at the event — a $5.1 billion Department of Energy loan opportunity for Alliant Energy and up to $1.2 billion in projected customer savings, as stated by the speakers — are checkable against the department’s loan record. Flagged as a scoreboard candidate for the editor; no verdict is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Delivers Remarks at Alliant Energy’s Natural Gas Plant - October 28, 2026”, 2026-10-29 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-10-29). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.