Dairyland participated in the White House Solar Summit and Champions of Change event in April at the White House in Washington, D.C.

Dairyland was nominated to attend the summit by the Rural Utilities Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Eau Claire Energy Cooperative, a Dairyland member, was also represented at the Summit. The summit recognized local leaders in the U.S. who are taking action to advance solar power.

Recently, Dairyland announced it is expanding its renewable energy resources with the addition of two commercial solar projects. Dairyland signed an agreement with Minnesota-Three, LLC, to purchase the renewable energy produced by a large solar facility in Minnesota. Construction of the solar facility has begun and it should be operational by June 1, 2014. A similar project is being constructed near Westby, Wis., during the same time frame. Dairyland also purchases the excess energy output from a solar generation facility owned by the City of Galena, Ill., the solar installation at the Necedah (Wis.) National Wildlife Refuge and a number of smaller distributed generation projects.