Dairyland Power 900 cows fuel 600 homes

Dairyland Power 900 cows fuel 600 homes
LA CROSSE - Dairyland Power is really living up to its name.

This week, the La Crosse-based cooperative dedicated its first cow-powered generating plant in Dunn County, north of Eau Claire. And more are coming soon.

At Five Star Farms, manure produced by Lee Johnson's 900 milk cows now generates enough renewable energy to power 600 homes.

It works like this: Manure goes into a digester tank that creates methane gas. Dairyland buys the gas and uses it to make electricity with a small generator right on the farm.

The $2 million plant was built by Microgy Inc., which licensed Danish digester technology that has been used at 20 European facilities over the last 15 years. Microgy says its digester produces four to six times as much methane gas as other technologies, which makes it financially feasible.

"There were a lot of naysayers," said Johnson, who visited Denmark to check out the technology before he invested in cow power. "But I felt that with Dairyland's backing, I couldn't imagine it wouldn't work."