Ames Electric Services is celebrating 125 years of public power by partnering with the Ames History Museum for an exhibit opening on Tuesday, July 20. A timeline of the electric utility will highlight significant milestone events and two exhibit cases will feature electric-production artifacts including a utility pole, an original metal utility pole tag, climbing gear, and other items. The Ames History Museum is located at 416 Douglas Ave.

The museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 1 to 4 p.m. The public is invited to a special anniversary celebration featuring free cupcakes from noon to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, July 21, at the museum.

“Ames is fortunate to have a long, successful history of locally controlled, dependable public power," said Ames Electric Services Director Donald Kom. “Collaborating with the Ames History Museum to produce this exhibit allows us to share the story of the Ames Municipal Electric System (AMES) with the rest of the community.”

In 1896, after no action was taken by the private sector to build an electric power plant, the Ames City Council called for a $12,000 bond to construct a municipal plant. This was the first Ames election where women could vote. The vote was 298 in favor of the project and 40 against. Ames’ first public power plant produced 150 kilowatts to light Main Street in the evenings. “We now provide more than a thousand times that original electricity capacity,” Kom added. “Today, Ames Electric Services customers rely on power generated by natural gas, refuse derived fuel, wind, and solar.”

In 1975, Ames opened the first waste-to-energy municipal facility in the country to generate electricity from garbage. In 2009, Ames signed a power purchase agreement for 36 MW of wind energy from a nearby wind farm. In 2016, Ames Power Plant boilers were converted from coal to cleaner burning natural gas. And in December 2020, SunSmart Ames, the City’s first community solar farm, began producing solar energy for Ames Electric Services customers.