Muscatine Power & Water
3205 Cedar Street , Muscatine, Iowa, United States

MP&W is located along the Mississippi River in Iowa, about 30 minutes from the Quad Cities metro area.  We are a municipal utility providing water, electric, and communications services to the City of Muscatine and surrounding areas.  Each utility was established by a vote of local citizens; Water in 1900, Electric in 1922, and Communications in 1997.  We serve to benefit our customer-owners and the Muscatine community.  The Water Utility draws water from the abundant Muscatine Island Aquifer.  Water from the aquifer is naturally-filtered by sand and gravel that lines the aquifer.   This produces high quality water with little need for chemical treatment.  Small doses of fluoride. chlorine, and phosphate are added to the water for dental health, to disinfect the water, and to stabilize naturally-occurring minerals in water.  Our Water Utility employs 11 highly trained and DNR/state certified staff to monitor, treat, and maintain our water system.  Public health and customer confidence in the water we deliver is a driving force for the Water Utility.   Electricity for our customers is generated in Muscatine.  Approximately 120 employees operate and maintain three coal-fired generating units at our Power Plant site.  With a combined nameplate operating capacity of 293.55 MW, MP&W has the largest generating capacity of any municipal utility in the state of Iowa.   Another 40 employees in our Transmission & Distribution department engineer and maintain a reliable distribution and metering system to safely get the power we generate to our customers’ homes and businesses.  The Communications Utility provides cable TV and Internet services to residential and business customers.  Advanced business services are offered via MachLink® Metro Ethernet (MME), an innovative city-wide fiber-based network.  We know it’s important in today’s world that like electricity, your Internet is always on when you want it.  Nearly 30 employees are in the field or in the office supporting our cable and Internet systems and customers.  We are proud to offer highly reliable services that are not weather dependent, and with outstanding local service.  Unlike other providers, we’re right down the street and here when you need us.  MP&W is important to the Community and a focus on keeping rates as low as possible helps other Muscatine businesses be more competitive in their industries and helps Muscatine residents pay a smaller portion for their utility services.  In total, we employ about 285 employees and we want to serve Muscatine for generations to come.  To help do so, we regularly reinvest in our plant facilities and distribution systems.  In 2014, we were very excited to announce our next investment in the Communications Utility! Our Fiber to the Home (FTTH) project will convert the last-mile of coax cable going to the customer premise to fiber.  FTTH will remove current system and equipment limitations and enable us to deliver gigabit speeds to our customers.  The project is currently underway and is expected to be completed in 2020.

History

1938 Electric Line Crew Muscatine Municipal Power Plant Electric Line Department - March 7, 1938. Muscatine Power and Water has a long tradition of providing excellent service to the community of Muscatine. The municipal Electric, Water, and Communications utilities are three separate enterprises, owned by the City of Muscatine and operated on a not-for-profit basis for community benefit. Each of the utilities was the brainchild of the citizens of Muscatine, who voted to create the utilities because the services that they were being provided were not meeting their needs.  MP&W's modern water testing lab. MP&W's downtown offices - June, 1971. Long ago the people of Muscatine realized that a municipal utility has many distinct characteristics that benefit the community it serves. One of the most important benefits is local control. Today complete control and management of each Utility is vested in an independent five-member Board of Water, Electric, and Communications Trustees appointed by the Mayor and ratified by the City Council. With a board made up of local representation, customers can be assured of decision making that takes into consideration local needs.  Through the vision of our forefathers, the citizens of Muscatine have a significant community asset with a proud history. Below, we have provided you with a brief account of each of the Utilities to enable you to become more acquainted with Muscatine Power and Water.

Mission Statement

Muscatine Power and Water will competitively meet the needs and expectations of our customers with an environmentally responsible and unique mix of services - for the direct benefit of our community.

Core Values

• We are a customer-driven organization that will deliver excellent, locally provided customer service.
• We are accountable for performing our jobs to the best of our ability, continuously learning, and developing competencies to ensure the Utility’s ongoing success.
• We will proactively comply with environmental regulations and engage in responsible environmental stewardship, recognizing that its operations impact our environment.
• We will operate efficiently to provide competitively priced utility services to the community, while maintaining a commitment to financial stability.
• We will deliver highly reliable utility services by employing best practices in the design, operation, and maintenance of its infrastructure.
• We are committed to a Culture of Safety, where safety is everyone’s responsibility, with a belief that all accidents are preventable.

Electric Utility

Unit 9 Turbine Internals 1906 Electric Power House Engine. Established in 1922, Muscatine Electric Light Company was formed in response to local concerns about poor service from privately held electric companies. The City of Muscatine approved the issuance of $350,000 of bonds to construct a new plant. In 1923, a contract in the amount of $375,000 was awarded for construction of the new electric plant and distribution system and for electrification of the water works plant. This work was accepted as complete in June 1924, and on June 5 the first application for electric service was made by Mayor Joseph B. Miller who was assigned meter number one.  In 1924, the Municipal Electric Utility placed in service two 750-kW generators. The community’s demand for electricity grew quickly and by 1926, the Utility was marginally meeting demand. The Municipal Electric Board submitted a bond issue for the construction of Unit 3. In 1927, 1.5 megawatts of additional generation was placed in service, doubling generating capacity.  By the late 1920s, it was obvious that existing generation was not going to be enough. Again, plans were made to increase generation. By 1930, a fourth unit was placed in service. Unit 4 was much larger, rated at 5 megawatts. This additional generation was a good investment because the demand for electricity continued to grow even through the Great Depression.  To stay ahead of an ever-increasing demand for electricity, the Board gained approval to build another unit. Construction began in 1939 on Unit 5, a 7.8-megawatt facility, again almost doubling the Utility’s total generation. By 1942, Unit 1 was retired from service.  Unit 9 Turbine Internals Unit 9 Generator Internals. After World War II, the post-war boom caused local industry and the community to grow. In 1948, 13.3-megawatt Unit 6 was added. Ten years later, the community’s requirement for electricity was taxing the Utility’s ability to keep up with demand. Unit 7 at 23.3 megawatts was placed into service in 1958. By this time, Unit 2 was retired.  The industrial boom of the 1950s and 1960s, resulted in the need for more generation. In 1969, Unit 8 entered service, supplying the City with an additional 80 megawatts of energy. By 1973, Units 3 and 4 were retired.  To meet the increasing demands for electricity within the community and to replace lost generation due to the retirement of older units, 156-megawatt Unit 9 was built and placed into service in May 1983 and in 1985, Units 5 and 6 were retired.  Unit 8A was constructed and placed into service in 2000, adding an additional 18.75 megawatts. Currently our total nameplate generating capacity is 293.55 megawatts.  In 2004, Muscatine Power and Water began offering customers the opportunity to participate in the development of “green energy” alternatives in Muscatine. GREEN MUSCATINE was initiated to help fund the acquisition and installation of two photovoltaic arrays, more commonly known as solar panels. Together, these panels produce 4,050 kWh of electricity annually, offsetting greenhouse gas emissions by 5.3 tons per year.   In 2006, we continued our efforts to promote renewable energy by installing a wind turbine. Since it was put in place, the turbine has saved 13,926 pounds of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to the energy to power 223 homes for one day or the pollution an average passenger car emits over 508 days.  In 2011, MP&W was named Small Power Plant of the Year by the Powder River Basin (PRB) coal users’ group. Since that time, MP&W has taken advantage of networking opportunities through PRB to learn, share, and apply best practices to our processes.  In 2014 MP&W received a prestigious award from the APPA which designated our Electric Utility as a Diamond Level Reliable Public Power Provider (RP3). The Diamond designation is the highest level RP3 award a public power utility can achieve; the designation recognizes electric utilities that have demonstrated excellence in Reliability, Safety, System Improvement, and Workforce Development.