For six months now, Wisconsin Watch has made a concerted effort to report on data centers. We’re publishing major stories at WisconsinWatch.org and, each Monday, we provide data center news nuggets in our Forward newsletter (subscribe here).
Here’s a month-by-month summary of what we’ve reported.
January: Wisconsin Watch revealed that officials in at least four Wisconsin communities (the number has since grown) signed nondisclosure agreements that hid details of billion-dollar data center proposals from the public.
February: We detailed how a $1 billion data center is being proposed for Grant County in the Driftless Area of southwest Wisconsin.
March: In a sign of the impact of artificial intelligence data centers, we reported that just three Wisconsin companies have done more than $1 billion in business supplying the facilities. We also disclosed more NDAs and other ways local governments have tried to keep data center details secret.
April: We were the first to report on an official estimate that state government will forgo $2 billion in revenue because of a sales tax exemption for data centers that was adopted in 2023.
June: We spent months gathering behind-the-scenes details on what happened to the Driftless Area proposal.
July: We detailed how land sales for the data center under construction in Port Washington turned homeowners and farmers into millionaires and, in some cases, created generation-changing wealth.
A major national credit rating agency downgraded Oracle’s rating last week, citing uncertainty about the tech giant’s investments in artificial intelligence. The drop comes just weeks after the company sued Wisconsin’s utility regulator over new credit requirements for data center operators in We Energies territory — a lawsuit spotlighting the company’s financial condition.
S&P Global Ratings, one of the “big three” ratings agencies responsible for assessing the creditworthiness of government and corporate debt, lowered Oracle’s rating from a BBB to a BBB- on July 9. The rating places Oracle on the bottom edge of S&P’s “investment-grade” tier; any additional downgrades will land the company’s credit rating in the “high yield” or “junk” tier.
“Oracle Corp.’s rapidly expanding AI infrastructure business is increasing its overall credit risk,” S&P analysts wrote in an announcement of the downgrade, pointing to high capital spending, “an uncertain path to profitability” and stiff competition as reasons to be “more cautious” in its approach to AI infrastructure businesses.
Still, S&P isn’t wholly pessimistic about Oracle’s finances.
“Despite the stretched leverage and cash-flow profile over the next two years, we expect Oracle to demonstrate consistent improvements toward profitability as capacity comes online and business scales,” the analysts added.
Oracle is co-developing a vast new data center campus in Ozaukee County, and its BBB- credit rating adds a hurdle to its efforts to connect the campus’ servers to the grid.
The reason: new rules for data centers seeking electrical service in We Energies territory. Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) recently approved a rate structure for We Energies’ “very large customers” that requires operators like Oracle to pay for the construction of new power plants needed to meet data center energy needs.
But constructing a new plant can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and any unpaid debts tied to the plants could fall to We Energies’ other customers if a data center operator becomes insolvent.
To shield ratepayers from a potential cost shift, the PSC set a AAA- credit rating threshold for data center operators seeking electric service from We Energies. Companies below the threshold must post steep collateral, either in cash or lines of credit, as a backstop.
For Oracle, that could mean paying $100 million or more a year as a condition of receiving electric service for Port Washington servers.
“In practical terms, tens of billions of dollars in Oracle’s value would need to be destroyed before creditors or counterparties, such as Wisconsin Electric and its other customers, could experience losses,” the utility’s lawyers wrote.
Oracle sued the commission in Ozaukee County Circuit Court as a backup to the reopener request. The company’s lawsuit asks Judge Sandy Williams to “set aside, reverse, and remand” the credit rating requirements, arguing that they aren’t “needed to prevent harm” to We Energies’ other customers or shareholders.
In a response filed July 9, the commission accused Oracle of trying to dodge regulatory scrutiny. The company seeks “to overturn over one-hundred years of established caselaw and allow it to dictate one-off preferential terms of service with the utility, bypassing Commission oversight altogether,” commission attorneys wrote.
Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board (CUB) and renewable energy advocacy group Clean Wisconsin also weighed in this week to support the credit ratings requirements.
“An investment grade credit rating provides little advance warning of financial difficulties that may worsen rapidly,” CUB attorney Daniel Narvey wrote in a position statement filed Monday in Ozaukee County Circuit Court. “If a data center customer suffered financial distress and had not been required to post collateral, (We Energies) and its other customers could be on the hook for billions of dollars of stranded investments.”
Oracle’s stock value has tumbled by more than 25% in the month since it sued the PSC.
Wisconsin isn’t the only state embroiled in a fight over Oracle’s data center operations. In March, Michigan’s Public Service Commission declined to revisit its approval of an electrical service agreement between utility DTE Energy, Oracle and OpenAI. Michigan’s utility regulator approved the contracts in an expedited, uncontested process that drew criticism from ratepayer advocates and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.
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Wisconsin’s largest transmission utility is seeking federal intervention months after the Midwest’s regional grid operator awarded a major project to a startup competitor.
The American Transmission Company (ATC), which owns and operates transmission lines across eastern and central Wisconsin, asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last month to force the grid operator to either redo its bidding process or reconsider earlier bids.
The request escalates a protracted fight over who profits from billions of dollars in new transmission investments — costs that electricity customers pay through their utility bills — and whether competitive bidding limits those costs. The race to serve energy-hungry data centers has raised the stakes, and ATC’s request is intertwined with plans to connect a massive data center campus in Port Washington to the grid by the end of next year.
The fight to build transmission lines
Wisconsin’s latest high-capacity transmission buildout began in 2022, when the nonprofit Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO) approved $10 billion in upgrades across the Upper Midwest. Another round of approvals in 2024 brought the total projected price tag to roughly $32 billion. The upgrades are a core part of MISO’s effort to improve grid reliability and connect population centers to abundant electricity from renewable sources, especially from wind farms on the Great Plains.
Included in the buildout are a set of transmission lines and substations circling Milwaukee, stretching south to the Illinois border and north to Fond du Lac and Sheboygan. MISO originally expected the projects to enter service by 2033.
Decade-old federal rules require competitive bidding for multistate transmission projects, and utilities and developers from around the country lined up to compete for a share of the Midwest’s buildout. The winners gain a reliable source of revenue via a fixed “return on equity” — profit per dollar invested — approved by regulators and paid for by electricity customers.
Supporters of the bidding requirement, including Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board, say it forces developers to compete on cost, thereby shielding ratepayers from cost overruns and excessive profits.
But investor-owned monopoly utilities have spent years seeking exemptions from competition, contending that the requirement hinders efficient grid development.
Those lobbying efforts have paid dividends elsewhere in the Midwest: Minnesota and Michigan, for instance, enacted right-of-first-refusal (ROFR) laws giving local utilities first dibs on any transmission projects within their territory, including those planned by grid operators like MISO.
Utilities argue ROFR laws ensure projects go to the companies best-equipped to complete them: local monopolies with well-established relationships with local labor and regulators. The companies also argue that claims of cost savings from competitive bidding are overblown.
With no Wisconsin law shielding it from competition, ATC has sought other means to control projects in its territory.
Two months after bidding on the eastern Wisconsin project last July, ATC asked the state Public Service Commission (PSC) for permission to build infrastructure for a planned data center campus in Ozaukee County. Port Washington’s city council approved the campus shortly after MISO signed off on the nearby transmission upgrades.
ATC, which manages the existing local transmission infrastructure, is responsible for ensuring the campus connects to the grid by December 2027. Three of the substations ATC proposed to state regulators would occupy roughly the same locations as MISO’s planned substations, though the data center would require higher-capacity infrastructure on a shorter timeline.
Winning the larger project would allow ATC to meet both needs with one set of substations, but if MISO chose another bidder, the utility said it would still seek state permission to build substations for the data center.
Instead, MISO initially awarded the project to Chicago-based Viridon, a startup owned by private equity firm Blackstone. Viridon’s roughly $350 million bid was the lowest — just over half of MISO’s estimate and more than $100 million below the next-cheapest bid. In its January announcement, MISO acknowledged the budget “may not be achievable” but cited Viridon’s promises to limit cost overruns and profits as reasons to pick the company over its competitors.
ATC pressed the issue. MISO agreed in February to move up the eastern Wisconsin project deadline to 2027. A month later, the operator reassigned the three substations to ATC outright, citing uncertainty over whether Viridon could clear the administrative hurdles in time to meet the new deadline.
Viridon kept only a fraction of the original eastern Wisconsin project, including a set of transmission lines and one substation, all still scheduled for completion by 2033.
ATC appeals to Washington
As ATC awaits PSC’s final approval of the eastern Wisconsin buildout, the utility has opened a new front in its fight against competition by asking FERC to step in.
In April, a group of utilities calling themselves the “Grid Acceleration Coalition” asked FERC to exempt at least some major grid upgrade projects from the competitive bidding requirement. The coalition argued that “bureaucratic red tape” can tack months onto project timelines and strain the country’s ability to “achieve dominance” in artificial intelligence. ATC is a member of the coalition, as is Xcel Energy, owner of Northern States Power Company-Wisconsin.
“This complaint is about whether our country will seize, or squander, a generational chance to own the next century,” the utilities wrote, pointing to the tug-of-war over MISO’s eastern Wisconsin project as an example of delays that could stymie AI development.
FERC has been flooded with similar requests as the nationwide data center boom strains grid capacity and spurs utilities to spend billions of dollars on new infrastructure. The fragmented U.S. energy system is poorly equipped to manage the scale of the buildout, and the five-person commission has begun weighing in on questions about speeding grid connections and shielding residential ratepayers from data-center-related costs.
The Grid Acceleration Coalition’s April request specified that it did not seek to “claw back” projects already awarded via competitive bidding.
ATC’s June complaint goes further. The utility asked FERC last month to either “re-bid” or “reevaluate the existing bids” for MISO’s eastern Wisconsin project, arguing the grid operator botched its earlier review. If FERC agrees, Viridon could lose its remaining portions of the project.
Tom Content of the Citizens Utility Board told Wisconsin Watch that CUB will “support a full evaluation of the process and any concerns,” but said the timing of ATC’s request — months after MISO first awarded the project — was a surprise.
ATC said it brought the issue to FERC rather than appealing to MISO because the commission offers a more neutral venue. The company said it does not know when FERC will decide whether to take up the request. It remains unclear whether ATC’s effort to reopen bidding would delay construction of the substations needed to plug in the Port Washington data center to the grid.
Correction: A previous version of the story incorrectly described the remedy American Transmission Company is seeking in its petition to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
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Whether artificial intelligence data centers are essential to modern life, an existential threat or something in between, one impact is clear:
As they pave over homes and farmland, they are minting millionaires — and even generation-changing wealth.
In Wisconsin, the clearest example is in Port Washington, a city of 13,000 north of Milwaukee where a 672-acre data center is under construction.
Some land deals were eye-popping, according to public records analyzed by Wisconsin Watch:
Members of the Karrels family and their family farming business earned at least $20 million. The largest sale was $10.2 million for 173 acres, or $59,000 per acre, 17 times the fair market value of $590,000.
Members of the Schlenvogt family, which has a long history in local government, sold properties for well above fair market value. Bonnie Schlenvogt sold her Lake Drive home and 65 acres for $3.44 million, nearly eight times the fair market value of $437,000. Her daughter-in-law, former Town of Port Washington Clerk Jennifer Schlenvogt, sold her nearly 3,000-square-foot Lake Drive home for $1.87 million, more than four times the fair market value.
A couple in their 60s, Peter and Ellie Burmesch, sold their 2,000-square-foot Tudor Revival on five acres for $2.13 million — seven times the estimated fair market value.
An adult group home with a fair market value of $320,700 sold for $6.5 million. Part of the deal involves relocating the facility.
Those sellers declined to comment.
Mayor Ted Neitzke, the data center’s most prominent supporter, said sellers fear being targeted by facility opponents.
“There’s a vocal minority that’s decided it needs to be louder,” he said. “That’s uncomfortable for (sellers) and they’re just not going to engage in it.”
Neitzke said the sellers are humble and not looking for publicity.
“They woke up one day and they just happened to live in the right spot.”
Port different from other data centers
Nationally, data center developers are willing to overpay for land near electric power and to beat competitors in what has turned into a land rush.
In Wisconsin, besides the Vantage-Oracle-Open AI $15 billion project in Port Washington, Microsoft is building a $20 billion data center in Mount Pleasant and Meta is building a $1 billion facility in Beaver Dam.
In Mount Pleasant, 25 miles south of Milwaukee in Racine County, most of the land had already been purchased by the village for a project launched by Foxconn that never fully developed. Racine County property sales records suggest Microsoft spent roughly $260 million on land alone.
In Beaver Dam, 40 miles northeast of Madison in Dodge County, the data center is located on 520 acres that were previously part of the Alliant Energy Commerce Park. Meta paid roughly at least $10.4 million for the land. Dodge County property sale records indicate that the tech giant purchased at least another 226 acres in Beaver Dam and neighboring Trenton from private landowners.
In Port Washington, on Lake Michigan’s shore in Ozaukee County, developers made big purchases from individuals. County property sale records show developers spent at least $125 million acquiring 1,500 acres of land or more.
Unhappy sellers
Curtiss Smith looks on at the property of his former home where the Vantage AI data center is now being built in Port Washington, May 21, 2026. (Trisha Young / Wisconsin Watch)
The windfall might have been welcomed by some sellers in Port Washington, but not others.
Ryan Nowak sold his 65-acre Lake Drive property for $1.75 million — over $1.3 million more than fair market value. But now, living on a 1.5-acre property about 10 miles north of Port Washington, he regrets it.
Nowak recalled that, before hiring an attorney, he signed documents that he said prevented him from discussing sale offers with his neighbors.
“On paper it looked OK, until you go to replace what you had,” Nowak said. “I don’t even have a fraction of what I had and it’s not like I have a ton more money left over or anything. I don’t know. I upgraded. What I have now is nicer, but it’s a fraction of the size of a property and buildings and everything else.”
Curtiss Smith also said there are misconceptions about his new wealth.
“People that weren’t part of it, they’re like, ‘Oh, now you’re a millionaire,’” he said. “Far from it.”
Smith, a 53-year-old crane operator, remembers the developer’s agent telling him his property would sell for three times the value of his four-acre property.
Sure enough, the property with a fair market value of $258,000 sold last August for $895,000.
The transaction left Smith appreciative but, having negotiated the deal alone, feeling some of his neighbors did better.
“After the fact, you hear what everybody else got,” he said. “You’re like, what the heck? Why did I sign so early, you know?”
Smith said the data center would have practically been in his backyard had he not sold. But, having bought a farmhouse a mile away, he still sees the data center every day.
Residents like Amanda Mueller — who live near the data center, but not close enough to get a purchase offer — are unhappy, too. They worry whether the project will cause environmental problems and bleed their property values.
“For all the people that moved here, for the tranquil beauty, the silence,” Mueller lamented. “It just seems so absurd now to look back at it and go, ‘Oh, God, if only we had a crystal ball. If only we knew.’
“I don’t think this town is ready for the culture change that’s going to happen,” she said. “So we’re looking at the future that’s really uncertain. And unfortunately, we’re trapped in the shadow of this thing.”
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Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has no plans to reconsider We Energies’ request to loosen credit rating rules for data center developers.
The commission voted in April to require data center developers with below-threshold credit ratings to provide financial guarantees before receiving electric service from We Energies. Ratepayer advocates say the requirement shields other customers from financial risk if a data center operator can’t afford to pay for infrastructure built on its behalf.
That requirement could cost tech giant Oracle, the co-developer of a Port Washington data center campus, over $100 million per year. We Energies asked the PSC to reconsider the rule last month, arguing that the added cost could dissuade other companies from operating in Wisconsin.
The three-member commission has until Friday to act on the request. The commissioners did not include the request on Thursday’s meeting agenda, and, as of Thursday evening, had not scheduled a Friday meeting to consider it. State law requires the commission to notify the public of scheduled meetings at least 24 hours in advance.
The PSC will instead defend the credit rating requirements in Ozaukee County Circuit Court, where Oracle sued the agency last month.
Guardrails
Commissioners approved the credit rating rules as one of several guardrails in We Energies’ new “very large customer” rate structure to prevent cost shifts from data center developers to the utility’s other customers.
The new rate structure requires We Energies to bill data center customers alone for power plants built to serve them. A single power plant can cost hundreds of millions of dollars — or, in the case of the proposed Red Oak Ridge plant in the town of Paris, more than a billion dollars. If a data center developer goes bankrupt, We Energies’ other customers could be on the hook for any remaining costs tied to the power plants.
With that worst-case scenario in mind, the PSC set a credit rating threshold for data center developers seeking We Energies electric service. Credit ratings measure a company’s financial health and likelihood of repaying debts on time. Developers with credit ratings below A- must provide financial guarantees to receive service. Those financial guarantees would help cover costs if a developer runs into financial trouble.
Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board and other ratepayer advocacy groups supported the “belt-and-suspender” approach to protecting smaller customers.
Exemption sought for Oracle
Oracle, a Texas-based cloud computing giant, currently holds a BBB credit rating — a tier below the A- threshold but still considered investment-grade by ratings agencies. The company’s aggressive borrowing in support of its artificial intelligence ventures pushed Oracle’s debt-to-equity ratio above 400% as of May, and its stock price has tumbled more than $50 in the past month alone.
The PSC-approved rate structure would require the Oracle subsidiary involved in the Port Washington project to provide more than $100 million a year in cash deposits or letters of credit to receive We Energies service.
“If the Commission does not reopen its decision on this issue, the implications for Wisconsin would be significant and limit the ability of numerous investment-grade companies to invest in Wisconsin,” We Energies wrote in its June 10 request that the PSC reconsider the credit rating rules.
The utility urged the commission to exempt companies with “investment-grade” credit ratings, including BBB ratings, and to waive the Oracle subsidiary’s financial backing requirements.
We Energies maintains that concerns about Oracle’s credit-worthiness are misplaced.
“In practical terms, tens of billions of dollars in Oracle’s value would need to be destroyed before creditors or counterparties, such as Wisconsin Electric and its other customers, could experience losses,” the utility’s attorneys wrote in their petition.
Friday’s deadline is the commission’s last chance to act on the request, but We Energies doesn’t expect any last-minute action.
“We are disappointed the commission chose not to revisit the financial support requirements under our Very Large Customer rate,” We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch on Thursday. “We believe updating the financial support requirements will help ensure the policy meets the goal we all agree on: protecting customers while supporting jobs and economic growth in Wisconsin.
The environmental advocacy group Clean Wisconsin, on the other hand, applauded the commissioners.
“The Public Service Commission did the right thing when it created this special rate structure for AI data centers, and it’s doing the right thing now by rejecting the petition,” Brett Korte, the nonprofit’s attorney, wrote in a Thursday press release. “This is about protecting We Energies’ other customers — families, small businesses, schools, manufacturers — and shielding them from the risks associated with these enormous energy users.”
Oracle is asking the Ozaukee County Circuit Court to intervene.
In its June 19 lawsuit, the company argues the commission acted outside its authority and without sufficient evidence to justify the rule. Oracle also maintains that the A- threshold isn’t “needed to prevent harm” to We Energies’ other customers or shareholders.
Microsoft’s questions
Also absent from the PSC’s agenda this week: a request from Microsoft to “clarify” parts of the data center rate structure.
Microsoft, the developer of the new data center campus in Mt. Pleasant, asked the PSC last month about the impact of potential changes to federal rules dictating how transmission utilities spread the construction costs of new infrastructure.
The five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) — not the Wisconsin PSC — has jurisdiction over how utilities allocate transmission costs.
The data center boom will require new transmission infrastructure, and FERC has yet to develop new rules to assign the cost of those projects to data center developers. The American Transmission Company, Wisconsin’s largest transmission utility, signaled this spring that it plans to ask FERC to approve a new cost allocation model.
In the meantime, Wisconsin’s PSC approved what commissioner Christi Nieto called a “temporary stopgap measure.” We Energies passes transmission costs to customers based on their electricity use, and the commission-approved rate structure sets a floor for data centers’ transmission bills based on projected electricity needs.
Microsoft argues that the possible federal rule changes create enough “ambiguity” to merit reconsidering how it will be billed for transmission costs after FERC considers new options.
The PSC also had until Friday to act on Microsoft’s request.
This story was updated July 10 to include information about Microsoft’s We Energies rate structure.
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Tech firm Oracle is suing Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) in Ozaukee County Circuit Court, opening a new front in a fight over financial protections for Wisconsin ratepayers.
The June 19 lawsuit comes as Oracle and We Energies — the utility set to power the company’s planned data center in Port Washington — are asking the PSC to reconsider credit rating requirements for data center developers that could cost the company millions of dollars a year.
Oracle’s lawsuit seeks to accomplish the same ends through the courts.
The PSC approved We Energies’ “very large customer” rate structure in April, requiring the utility to exclusively bill data center customers for new energy generation infrastructure needed to serve them, among other protections for existing ratepayers. The agreement also requires data center developers with credit ratings below A- to post financial guarantees to reduce the risk of shifting costs to other customers if a developer runs into financial trouble.
Oracle currently holds a BBB credit rating — a tier below the PSC standard, but still considered investment-grade by ratings agencies — largely because of aggressive borrowing to finance new artificial intelligence infrastructure. Under the current rate structure, the Oracle subsidiary involved in the Port Washington project would need to provide cash deposits or letters of credit exceeding $100 million per year to receive service from We Energies.
“If the Commission does not reopen its decision on this issue, the implications for Wisconsin would be significant and limit the ability of numerous investment-grade companies to invest in Wisconsin,” the utility’s attorneys wrote in a June 10 request to reopen the case.
We Energies also contended that Oracle runs little risk of defaulting on its obligations.
“Tens of billions of dollars in Oracle’s value would need to be destroyed before creditors and counterparties, such as Wisconsin Electric and its other customers, could experience losses,” the utility’s attorneys wrote. Even in a bankruptcy, they added, generators built to serve data centers “will still have value and will be able to provide electricity to other customers.”
We Energies and Oracle asked the PSC to consider a stepped approach to security requirements that eases the burden on companies with “investment-grade” credit ratings, including BBB ratings, and to waive the Oracle subsidiary’s financial backing obligations.
In its lawsuit, Oracle asked the court to “set aside, reverse and remand” the credit rating limits in the PSC-approved agreement, arguing that the commission acted outside of its authority and without sufficient evidence to justify the rule. The company maintains that the A- bar isn’t “needed to prevent harm” to We Energies’ other customers or shareholders, and that the commission “failed to consider the significant, adverse impacts” of the requirement on Oracle.
Ratepayer advocates and clean energy groups support the PSC credit rating requirements, and some of the same groups are pushing back against Oracle’s efforts to reopen the issue.
“We believe that PSC did its job,” Clean Wisconsin spokesperson Amy Barrilleaux said. “It cannot leave all these other thousands of customers vulnerable.”
The company hired attorneys from the Madison office of law firm Husch Blackwell. One of those attorneys, David Zoppo, has previously represented investor-owned utilities before the PSC. Oracle’s attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The credit rating dispute could shape future electrical service contracts between data center developers and utilities.
Northern States Power Company, a subsidiary of utility giant Xcel Energy that provides electrical service to parts of northwestern Wisconsin, asked the PSC on Monday for its own “very large” customer rate structure.
That proposal would set the credit rating bar at BBB-, the lowest investment-grade category. Potential data center customers below that threshold would need to provide additional financial guarantees.
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Even for a guy like Ron Brisbois, whose job is to cultivate prosperity, a data center proposed for Wisconsin’s Driftless Area was too big to imagine.
Nothing like this had come along in Brisbois’ quarter-century as economic development director in rural Grant County. An up to $2 billion project spanning 500 acres would be at least three times larger — in dollars and space — than any development in the county.
The construction contracts. Dozens of new permanent jobs. Millions of extra tax revenue for schools and local government. This is what economic development is all about.
For months, the out-of-state developers pitching the data center spoke repeatedly with Brisbois. They toured the county in Wisconsin’s southwest corner. They visited Madison to discuss details with state officials.
Their talk was big.
But Brisbois never dug into the developers’ backgrounds.
Then, as if someone flipped a switch, they stopped returning his calls.
Now, a project that would have been historically transformational — and was already highly controversial — is all but dead.
Drawing on two months of behind-the-scenes interviews Wisconsin Watch conducted with Brisbois, here’s the behind-the-scenes story of the rise and fall of a data center proposal.
Out for a drive
The Driftless Area’s rugged hills and steep valleys inspire strong pride in Grant County — and concern about large-scale development. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Brisbois first heard about the data center last fall. A colleague told him the developers were scouting northern Illinois for a cryptocurrency project when they drove across the border into Grant County and looked up to see the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line. It delivers electricity along a 100-mile corridor from Dubuque County, Iowa, through Cassville in Grant County, to Dane County.
The developers quickly surmised that with access to the kind of power that artificial intelligence data centers desperately need, the town of Cassville (population 400) could be ideal.
“There’s a chunk of power there, Ron, and we need to grab it before someone else does,” Brisbois recalled the developers saying. “If we don’t, someone else will.”
Brisbois’ reaction: “Well, why shouldn’t we?”
The median $67,000 household income among Grant County’s 52,000 residents is $10,000 below the state median; 12% live in poverty.
Brisbois said he initially felt curiosity, not excitement, “because I never would have thought a project like that would look at this area.”
The two-man team included a businessman from the Northeast and a technical expert from the South.
Even now, citing a custom of confidentiality common to economic development proposals, Brisbois won’t identify them.
The man for the job?
Early in his career, not long after working in economic development for the former state Department of Commerce, Brisbois yearned to bring jobs and industry to his home area.
Ron Brisbois, Grant County Economic Development Corp. executive director, poses for a portrait in his office, June 4, 2026, in Lancaster, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Married with two grown daughters, Brisbois, 60, grew up on a southwest Wisconsin dairy farm and still does a little farming of his own. After six years in the state job, he became executive director of the Grant County Economic Development Corp. in 1999. A resident of Ithaca in Richland County, which borders Grant, he’s a former Ithaca School Board member and currently serves on the town board.
“I’ve had multiple staff, people from multiple governors tell me, ‘Ron, we love what you do, but we like to see these projects done in Milwaukee, Madison or the Fox Valley,’” he said.
“And that’s because of votes. And I get it. I’m not naive. I mean, people want to get reelected. They want to have their impact. And I appreciate it. But things like that really motivated me. It’s like, what could I do out there (in the Driftless)?”
First meeting, excitement builds
Brisbois began work in earnest on the project Nov. 6. He gave the developers a book of maps, noting where the transmission line runs. He emailed Grant County Board chair Bob Keeney, saying he would meet the next week with a “data center prospect who is flying in from Rhode Island.”
Keeney called the news exciting.
“My meeting is the first of the day for them,” Brisbois told Keeney. “Then they meet with the energy reps. Land is my primary assignment, plus they want to know about the political feel for such a project.”
The meeting, requested by the developers, was at Scenic Rivers Energy Cooperative in Lancaster, the county seat. Because of a storm on the East Coast, they drove instead of flying.
“It was about a less than a half-hour meeting,” Brisbois recalled. “And I just said, ‘What are you guys thinking?’ And that’s where they started talking about a hyperscale project.”
“It was more of just feeling them out,” he added. “OK, what scale? And that’s where they talked about $1 billion to $2 billion. And they started to talk in the 500-acre range.”
They understood there would be a lot of work to confirm that enough power would be available.
The developers were also considering sites in Indiana and North Dakota. They didn’t ask about financial incentives, but wondered what the public might think about a data center. Brisbois told them residents would want to know about jobs, but he emphasized more local tax revenue. The developers had seen a headline in the Grant County Herald Independent about local schools and municipalities struggling with budgets.
Momentum built after more conversations with the developers.
Brisbois began to let himself feel excited.
“I was (thinking): OK, there’s potential here.”
Going public, progress continues
Brisbois went public a month after the first meeting. He announced Dec. 3 at the annual meeting of the Grant County Economic Development Corp. that a $1 billion data center had been proposed for the county. The Herald Independent reported on it a week later.
It would be three times or more larger than the largest development in the county, A.Y. McDonald’s $350 million, 100-acre foundry.
Brisbois said the developers later asked, “How did this get out?” He told them he wanted to be transparent.
“I’m sure my (economic development) colleagues would have said, ‘You were a fool to do it. I would never have released that information.’”
But progress continued.
Brisbois met again in early February at Scenic Rivers with the developers.
“It was more of, you start getting into the brass tacks of the project. The formality kind of is done. You’ve met them, now you’re on a first-name basis, that type of thing.”
Brisbois was also encouraged by a virtualmeeting he had in February, the same month that officials two hours away in Beaver Dam announced they were working to land a $1 billion data center, which is now under construction. The meeting was with Prescott Balch, who has been sought out by data center opponents around Wisconsin for his expertise. Balch confirmed that he agreed that Brisbois’ estimate of 50 permanent jobs seemed solid.
“If I start talking 50 jobs, that’s a big deal in Grant County,” Brisbois said.
And yet, the developers never told Brisbois where exactly in the county they wanted to locate.
Opposition takes hold
A “No Data Center In The Driftless” sign is posted outside of a home, June 4, 2026, in Grant County, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
People in Grant County have particular affection for being part of the Driftless Area, with its rugged hills and steep valleys, the result of being missed by the last glacier that covered most of Wisconsin. They worry about too much development.
Data center opponents began mobilizing early in 2026, but interest peaked March 8, when hundreds attended a rally featuring comedian Charlie Berens. The efforts of Pete Moris and Melodie Betts were beginning to pay off.
Moris, a public relations executive and Grant County native, has a son Grant, named after the county. He believes the data center would be too large for the Driftless Area and fears it would harm water wells.
Moris recalled the December newspaper story about Brisbois announcing the proposal.
“That set off alarm bells because if Ron’s talking about it in the paper, then this had to be in the works for a while,” Moris said. “And the fact that we weren’t being told who the developer was and who the end user is, that’s scary.”
Betts, a restaurant owner who drinks only reverse osmosis-purified water, also worries a data center would harm the water supply and attract more development.
“If we don’t stop this now, we’re going to lose everything that’s precious in the Driftless Area,” she said. “You let one in, you open up the door.”
Data center opponent Pete Moris poses for a portrait on June 4, 2026, in Grant County, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Data center opponent Melodie Betts poses for a portrait, June 4, 2026, in Grant County, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Data center opponent Pete Moris points out a discussed location of a proposed $2 billion data center, June 4, 2026, in Grant County, Wis. The proposal now appears to be dead. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Data center opponents Pete Moris, left, and Melodie Betts follow Raptor Resource Project manager Ryan Schmitz into the Eagle Valley Nature Preserve, June 4, 2026, in Grant County, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Progress and optimism rise
As opponents claimed the spotlight, the developers seemed to back off.
About a week after the Berens rally, the developers called Brisbois out of the blue. “That was unusual,” Brisbois recalled.
They said a potential operator of the data center had asked about incentives, including a tax increment district (TID).
A TID is a common tax break that commits future property taxes from a land parcel’s anticipated increase in value to finance a proposed development.
Brisbois said he told the developers he didn’t think a TID would be legally possible for a town. He said he thought that not offering the tax break would appeal to residents, but sensed the developers disagreed.
“I don’t think they saw it as that,” he said. “After that, dead quiet.”
Brisbois followed up with two calls, leaving messages — but, for the first time, got no response.
They had always been “very prompt,” he said.
Then the developers reengaged.
They flew to Chicago and drove to Madison to meet with Brisbois and the Department of Natural Resources on March 19. They discussed state regulatory issues such as permits for air, water, wetlands and other issues. The developers emerged “feeling very good,” even as they began to hear the approval process would be time consuming, Brisbois said. In later phone calls, the developers were enthused that the data center might qualify for a state sales tax exemption.
That exemption is expected to be worth billions of dollars to data centers around the state.
The Eagle Valley Nature Preserve observation tower overlooks the Mississippi River and Gutenberg, Iowa, June 4, 2026, in Grant County, Wis. The 1,450-acre preserve is just north of site that was considered for a data center. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
By early April, Brisbois was confident enough to release more details, including an estimate that the data center would produce $5.5 million per year in property tax revenue to municipalities and school districts in Grant County. He said he had received fewer than five phone calls or emails opposing the data center, which had been “demonized” through social media, and dozens of supportive contacts, particularly from the local school district.
Keeney called local data center supporters “a silent majority.”
Brisbois also was optimistic because he felt he provided the developers what they needed. It was up to them to proceed with financing and acquiring land.
“From my perspective, they should have all that they need to put their ducks in a row,” he recalled. “I don’t know then why they wouldn’t proceed in Grant County.”
Brisbois had rated the chances of getting the data center as 1-in-12 after his first meeting with the developers, then 1-in-6 after the second meeting.
On April 6, he said it was better than a coinflip. “I would say right now, it’s leaning towards.”
‘Dead quiet’ and a town residents uprising
A “No Data Center In The Driftless” sign is posted, June 4, 2026, in Grant County, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
It didn’t take long for that optimism to fade.
Data center opponents had been contacting Brisbois’ board members, so he emailed them April 14. He tried to rebut claims about water and electricity use and emphasized the jobs and property tax revenue. “This data center project is going to be located somewhere,” he wrote. “If it’s going to be somewhere, it should be here.”
But asked the next day if there had been more progress with the developers, Brisbois said: “It’s gone dead quiet.” He adjusted the chances of landing the data center back to less than 50-50.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever had one (developer), after they were hot to trot, and then they went cold, and then they come back and they’re hot to trot,” he said, admitting that despite his optimistic nature, he was a bit deflated. “I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those yet. But we’ll see.”
Meanwhile, the opposition was doing more than rallying.
In Cassville, home to Nelson Dewey State Park, named after Wisconsin’s first governor and a longtime Grant County resident, the town board approved a data center moratorium. That was significant for a town that previously had no zoning regulation.
Following Cassville’s lead, several Grant County towns and the County Board adopted data center moratoriums. Lawmakers proposed legislation for statewide regulation. The state Public Service Commission moved to require data centers to pay the cost of generating and transmitting the electricity they would need. And gubernatorial candidates from both parties were vowing to protect communities from data centers.
Meanwhile, Brisbois continued to call the developers, with no luck. His daughters told Brisbois they were “ghosting” him — like a person who doesn’t want to go on a second date.
“When people go quiet like this, it’s an indicator to me that the project is not moving forward, or at least their interest is waning,” Brisbois said in late-April.
“Historically, that has been a very common practice in my industry. They just fade away.”
Brisbois admitted he was turning more attention to other projects and feeling disappointed.
“I put a lot of time into this and lost a lot of sleep over it,” he said at the time. “It stings a bit. I don’t know that it’s done-done. But I’m pretty calloused over by now.”
‘Very little due diligence’
Brisbois acknowledged he did “very little due diligence” into the developers, saying he had limited ability to background check out-of-state residents.
He said that left him feeling vulnerable.
“I’m making a leap of faith,” he said. “But I do that all the time. I’m assuming that a business has the financial means to pull this off.”
“It’s not my job to really scrutinize — OK, you’re a good candidate versus … you’re not qualified,” he continued. “I don’t necessarily have the resources to do that, I’m a one-person show.”
Newspaper clippings and posters hang in the office of Grant County Economic Development Corp. Executive Director Ron Brisbois, June 4, 2026, in Lancaster, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
By late May, the proposal seemed like only a memory. No return phone calls. Nothing scheduled, even as opponents continued public protests.
It’s possible the developers will never announce whether or where they’re building a data center. But Brisbois expressed no regrets.
“I felt that the project certainly has its merits,” he said, “and certainly was worth pursuing.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
We Energies this week asked Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission to revisit its recent ruling on electrical rates for the utility’s data center customers, arguing new credit rating requirements create an undue burden for data center operators.
The PSC approved We Energies’ “very large customer” rate structure in April, requiring the utility to exclusively bill data center customers for new energy generation infrastructure needed to serve them, among other protections for existing ratepayers. The agreement also requires data center developers with credit ratings below A- to post financial guarantees, either in cash or lines of credit, to reduce the risk of shifting costs to other customers if a developer runs into financial trouble.
That requirement poses a problem for Oracle, which is partnering with OpenAI and Vantage to develop a vast data center campus in Port Washington.
The cloud computing giant currently holds a BBB credit rating — a tier below the A- bar set by the PSC, but still considered investment-grade by ratings agencies — largely due to aggressive borrowing to finance new artificial intelligence infrastructure. Under the current rate structure, the Oracle subsidiary involved in the Port Washington project would need to provide cash deposits or letters of credit exceeding $100 million per year to receive We Energies service.
“If the Commission does not reopen its decision on this issue, the implications for Wisconsin would be significant and limit the ability of numerous investment-grade companies to invest in Wisconsin,” the utility’s attorneys wrote in a June 10 filing.
Several other major technology companies — including Intel, Tesla and Micron — hold BBB credit ratings, the attorneys noted.
Ratepayer advocates backed credit limits for data center developers during the PSC’s deliberations on the case. In written testimony to the PSC in January, Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board chief economist Steve Kihm pointed to energy trading giant Enron, which held a BBB credit rating just a year before its 2001 bankruptcy, as a reason to be cautious with financial commitments from high-dollar investors.
In its request to reopen the case, We Energies argued that the risks of Oracle or other tech giants defaulting on obligations are extremely low.
“Tens of billions of dollars in Oracle’s value would need to be destroyed before creditors and counterparties, such as Wisconsin Electric and its other customers, could experience losses,” the utility’s attorneys wrote. Even in a bankruptcy, they added, generators built to serve data centers “will still have value and will be able to provide electricity to other customers” — as opposed to a scenario in which the generators sit idle while solvent ratepayers cover the debts We Energies incurred to build them.
We Energies and Oracle asked the PSC to consider a stepped approach to security requirements that eases the burden on companies with “investment-grade” credit ratings, including BBB ratings, and to waive the Oracle subsidiary’s financial backing obligations. The utility argued that its proposed waiver would still offer greater protections than those required from Meta in its recent agreement with Wisconsin Power and Light, a subsidiary of Alliant Energy.
But Union of Concerned Scientists energy analyst Maria Chavez pointed out that We Energies’ arrangements with new hyperscale data center customers differ from Meta’s one-off service agreement with Alliant. Meta isn’t “specifically asking for extra generation capacity assets to be added,” she said, whereas the Port Washington data center campus — and Microsoft’s data center in Mount Pleasant — will require new, dedicated energy sources.
“The greater risk to ratepayers,” she added, “the more reason to have a high standard for financial security requirements.”
We Energies and Oracle urged the commission to “move quickly” on the issue to “provide certainty for generational investments that are currently moving forward in this state.”
About 100 community members joined developers and city officials inside the former Walmart at 5825 W. Hope Ave in Milwaukee. Alderman Mark Chambers of District 2 called the meeting to give residents a closer look at the development. The heavy humidity inside added to the tension as residents shared their opposition to the project. The development will include a data processing and computer research facility in the building’s rear and self-service storage, taking up most of the building. Many residents opposed both. The city of Milwaukee says those commercial uses are contingent on first developing housing and greenspaces nearby. #wisconsinwatch#milwaukeenns#datacenter#milwaukee
About 100 community members joined developers and city officials Wednesday inside the long-vacant former Midtown Walmart at 5825 W. Hope Ave. in Milwaukee. Ald. Mark Chambers called the meeting to give residents a closer look at redevelopment plans for the site. Heavy humidity inside the building added to the tension as residents voiced opposition to parts of the proposal.
Supporters say the project offers a realistic path to redeveloping a property that has sat empty for a decade. Opponents argue the site should prioritize housing and community uses over storage and technology infrastructure. City officials say the commercial components cannot move forward unless affordable housing and green space are developed first.
As Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service previously reported, most of the 160,000-square-foot former Walmart is proposed to be a climate-controlled, self-service storage facility, with additional spaces in the front for a new location for the Capitol branch of the Milwaukee Public Library and other community space that could be used by the city of Milwaukee.
Meanwhile, up to 19,000 square feet would be used for a data processing/computer services/computer research facility, according to project documents. The City Plan Commission approved an affordable housing project in the parking lot north of the building in April.
“The property has been vacant for 10 years,” said Chambers Wednesday over shouts from the crowd. “This is finally an opportunity … to finally turn a once-blighted property into something that is valuable to the community.”
Trent Overhue, the property owner and developer, said he’s been trying to develop the site for four years. “I can’t get anybody to come in here.”
City officials and developers emphasized that this wasn’t a data center like the massive one in Port Washington or other hyperscale AI data centers.
Calling it “a little bitty facility,” Overhue said the proposed IT center would require 7 megawatts of power.
For comparison, Meta’s planned data center campus in Beaver Dam is expected to use 220 megawatts at peak demand — less than half the projected power use of the large campuses planned in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington. One megawatt of energy can power anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand homes a day, depending on where, when and how electricity is used.
Resident Kellie Momon said she’s “elated” by plans for a library, makerspace and affordable housing in the area.
“But why do we have to have storage taking up so much of that space that could be used for more affordable housing — more community things?” she said. “Why is that even part of the plan? Why do we have to have a data center?”
Meredith Melland contributed to this report.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
New federal dollars could extend the life of one of Wisconsin’s remaining coal power plants.
The Trump administration plans to spend $425 million to support operations at 13 coal plants in 10 states, arguing the move will help meet rising electricity demand and preserve thousands of jobs tied to the ailing coal industry. The White House will do so by invoking the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law that gives the president broad authority to accelerate American industrial output at times of crisis.
Some of that funding could go to Madison-based utility Alliant Energy, which told Wisconsin Watch that it applied for a $19 million grant to extend the life of coal-powered units it owns at the Columbia Energy Center near Portage in central Wisconsin. The utility previously planned to retire the plant’s coal units before the end of the decade.
President Donald Trump announced the action from the Oval Office Thursday, highlighting that the coal plants set to benefit are all in states he won during the 2024 election.
“Wisconsin put you over the edge,” U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., interjected, standing among the gaggle of Republican lawmakers and Cabinet officials behind the president.
“Our action will allow these facilities to invest in upgrades that will extend their operational lives for decades into the future, reinforce the reliability of our electrical grid … and keep electricity prices low for the American people,” Trump said, adding that the move may also bolster the nation’s artificial intelligence boom.
The administration will also distribute $200 million in Department of Energy grants to reopen a coal plant in Maryland and build the first new coal plants in the U.S. in over a decade: one in Alaska and another in West Virginia.
The Trump administration has already intervened to block the retirement of coal plants in Michigan, Indiana and elsewhere. But the White House did not pair those earlier orders with funding to support ongoing operations, so ratepayers across most of the Midwest — including in Wisconsin — will pick up the bill for those extensions.
Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board (CUB) and other Midwestern ratepayer advocacy groups have since filed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit challenging federal orders blocking the closure of the Michigan and Indiana plants. The costs of extending aging coal plants’ operations “are adding to an affordability challenge customers are already experiencing in Wisconsin and nearby states,” said CUB Wisconsin Executive Director Tom Content.
Alliant has already pushed back the retirement dates for its coal-powered generators at the Columbia Energy Center and Edgewater Energy Center in Sheboygan. The company initially pledged to shut down the last coal generator at the Columbia plant by 2024; Alliant did not clarify the new expected life span of the plant.
The Edgewater plant is slated to transition to natural gas generation by 2029.
Coal generation accounts for a declining share of Wisconsin’s and the Midwest’s overall energy mix. Natural gas surpassed coal as the state’s primary fuel for generating electricity in 2022.
Extending operations at Alliant’s remaining coal plants could reduce the amount ratepayers will still owe when those facilities eventually close.
Wisconsin clean energy advocates reacted with alarm to the White House’s doubling down on coal generation.
“Burning coal in Wisconsin releases a long list of toxic chemicals and heavy metals, both into the air and water,” said Clean Wisconsin spokesperson Amy Barrilleaux. “No one in Wisconsin is asking for more mercury, arsenic, lead or soot. But we will be getting all of it, especially as the Trump administration dismantles pollution safeguards at coal plants, insisting more power is needed for the ‘AI data center revolution.’”
“It’s also important to note that burning coal is one of the most expensive ways to produce energy in Wisconsin — far more expensive than wind and solar farms, which are the cheapest,” she added. “So Wisconsinites will have higher energy costs and will be paying for the health costs, the longer we burn coal in this state.”
Alliant has scaled up investments in renewable energy generation in recent years, buoyed in part by clean energy tax credits extended by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The U.S. Department of Energy also agreed to back $3 billion in loans supporting Alliant’s wind generation and battery storage buildouts in the final days of the Biden administration.
The Trump administration has since largely reversed Biden-era tax incentives for renewable energy development. In its 2025 annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Alliant noted that the termination of clean energy tax credits could “adversely impact” the company’s finances.
The company did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the status of Department of Energy financing for its wind and battery storage projects.
U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum argued Thursday that clean energy tax incentives created a false impression of the viability of renewable energy sources. Wind energy developers, he said, “weren’t trying to generate electricity. They’re just trying to generate tax credits.”
“Energy shouldn’t need subsidy,” Trump responded.
Editor’s note: This story was updated on June 5, 2026 to include information from Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin
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A dozen Wisconsin state lawmakers are urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reject a utility coalition’s request to pause competition for major electrical transmission projects in the Midwest.
The lawmakers — eight Assembly Republicans and four Senate Republicans — argued in a letter to the commission that competition for electrical transmission is a net positive for ratepayers, who stand to benefit from lower costs and increased innovation. That outcome, lawmakers wrote, “is even more urgent today given the rising issue of customer affordability.”
The utilities requesting a pause dispute whether competition truly lowers final costs for customers, but that argument is secondary to their primary concern: Powering the Midwest’s data center boom will require vast electrical transmission upgrades, and major regional utilities argue that competition only slows down projects needed to bring data centers online before international competitors overtake the U.S. in the artificial intelligence race.
Among the utilities behind the request are Xcel Energy, owner of Northern States Power Company-Wisconsin, and American Transmission Company (ATC), Wisconsin’s largest electrical transmission operator.
The state lawmakers cast the utilities’ request as the latest stage of a long-standing fight over transmission market competition — one that has unfolded in the Assembly over the last five years.
Data center boom intensifies transmission competition
Ratepayer advocacy groups successfully lobbied FERC, which oversees utilities nationwide, to introduce competitive bidding for regional transmission projects in 2011, arguing that the previous model — allowing local monopolies to build all projects planned within their territories — all but guaranteed inflated costs.
The shift triggered a nationwide gold rush for transmission projects. Regulators pre-approve developers’ “return on equity,” or profit on each dollar invested, for transmission construction, so winning a project means picking up a reliable revenue stream.
Dozens of developers have since bid on transmission projects planned by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), the nonprofit that manages the wholesale electricity market for much of the Midwest. MISO has approved more than $32 billion in new transmission projects since 2022 — projects largely planned before the region’s data center boom reached full swing.
The rush to win projects has placed well-established local utilities like ATC in competition with powerful national utilities venturing outside of their traditional territory, international developers venturing into the U.S. market, and startups backed by private equity firms.
As data center developers rapidly scale up Midwest operations, the pace of transmission upgrades could become a choke point.
In March, MISO reversed its decision to award substations in Fond du Lac, Ozaukee and Sheboygan counties to private-equity-backed startup Viridon, instead handing the projects to ATC.
ATC’s initial bid was more expensive than Viridon’s, but the company successfully argued it alone could build the substations in time to serve the nearby Vantage data center campus in Port Washington. Viridon had not yet secured Public Service Commission permission to operate in Wisconsin — a hurdle ATC does not face.
MISO initially aimed to complete the substations by 2033; the Port Washington data center plans to come online in early 2028. Though ATC emerged victorious, it told FERC that the 15-month delay between MISO’s initial approval of the substations and the reversal was “completely unnecessary.”
Utilities say competition slows projects needed for AI growth
In the utility coalition’s initial request to FERC, it cast competition-related delays as a national security threat.
“These projects — expressways for power — are as critical to meeting today’s challenges as the Eisenhower interstate highway system was to prevailing in the Cold War,” the utilities argued in their initial filing. “China has devoted itself to overtaking America as the world’s AI leader and is just months behind.”
In this video, Paul Kiefer explains why Wisconsin’s grid buildout is a “gold rush” for utility companies.
The utility coalition proposed two options: Allow MISO, along with the grid operator for parts of the Great Plains and Southwest, to exempt transmission projects from competitive bidding on a case-by-case basis or suspend competition entirely for the next five years — “when our country must begin building the infrastructure that will decide which nation wins the AI race,” the utilities wrote.
Ratepayer advocacy groups immediately pushed back. Paul Cicio, chair of the nationwide Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition, called the request “tone deaf.”
“Suspending competition for five years,” he wrote in a press release, “would expose consumers in these regions to unchecked cost escalation for years, guaranteeing higher utility bills.”
In a protest filed with FERC in late May, Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board pointed to the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line in southern Wisconsin as an example: The 102-mile project was not subject to competitive bidding, and construction costs came in roughly 40% over budget by the time ATC, Dairyland Power Cooperative and ITC Midwest completed the line in fall 2024.
Opponents of the utilities’ request recognize that the data center boom complicates the playing field for transmission competition.
“Timelines are looking different than the industry is used to,” said Caitlin Marquis, managing director of Advanced Energy United, a trade group representing an array of clean energy and energy efficiency industries. “Transmission competition has been facing curveballs and challenges since it was introduced,” she added. Many challenges result from lobbying by incumbent utilities, and data centers’ speedy construction cycles are only the latest addition.
Her organization opposes the utilities’ request, arguing that incumbent utilities have a long track record of delaying non-competitive transmission projects — and that regulators should streamline the bidding process rather than forego competition entirely.
But utilities argue competitive bidding has yet to prove its worth. While MISO generally favors lower-cost bids, an ATC spokesperson wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch, “evidence of a low bid is not evidence of cost savings.”
Bid prices often do not match the final project cost, they added, and substantial overruns are common, even on projects with competitive bidding.
Federal fight echoes years of debate in Wisconsin
As regional grid operators introduced competitive bidding for transmission projects a decade ago, utilities turned to state legislatures for right-of-first-refusal, or ROFR, laws.
Those laws give local utilities first dibs on transmission projects within their territories, including those planned by regional grid operators like MISO.
Michigan and Minnesota adopted such policies; Iowa’s Supreme Court struck down a ROFR law in 2023.
Construction unfolds at the 350-plus-acre Beaver Dam Commerce Park, the site of a Meta data center, Jan. 20, 2026, in Beaver Dam, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Utilities have backed similar proposals in Wisconsin each year since 2021, including a 2025 bill introduced by outgoing Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.
Those proposals would have “insulat(ed) incumbents from market discipline” and left ratepayers holding the bag, the Wisconsin lawmakers argued to FERC.
“Having failed repeatedly to persuade the Wisconsin Legislature,” they continued, “the same incumbent entities are now pursuing an end-run at FERC.”
ATC maintains that options before FERC would “not operate as a substitute” for a ROFR law, “even temporarily.”
The utilities don’t stand alone before FERC. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a union representing the tradespeople who build and maintain transmission lines, also backs the request to pause competition.
Editor’s note: This story was updated June 4, 2026 to include comments from Caitlin Marquis, managing director of Advanced Energy United.
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Wisconsin regulators on Thursday approved a one-off contract between Alliant Energy and the Meta subsidiary building a data center campus in Beaver Dam, but with a major caveat: Alliant must return with a standardized plan to power future data centers — and shield other customers from resulting costs.
The agreement bears little resemblance to the model We Energies proposed for its hyperscale data center customers in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington. That model covers all future We Energies data center customers and was approved last month with major modifications by the three-member Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC).
Both the PSC and ratepayer advocates expressed reservations about allowing Alliant to proceed without a standardized payment structure for data center customers. Negotiating contracts one-by-one, Commission Chair Summer Strand argued, would undermine the public’s interest in transparency and consistency.
Strand and fellow commissioners Kristy Nieto and Marcus Hawkins approved a modified version of the agreement, acknowledging that the Beaver Dam campus will open in 2027 with or without a tailored contract with Alliant. Sending the utility back to the drawing board for another year, they reasoned, could expose other customers to greater financial risk. The commissioners directed Alliant to propose a standardized payment structure for large data center customers similar to the We Energies arrangement approved last month.
Wisconsin Power and Light, an Alliant subsidiary, filed its case with the PSC last spring, months before Meta joined state and local officials in announcig its Beaver Dam data center campus.
The Beaver Dam facility, the first of its kind in Alliant’s Wisconsin service territory, is smaller than the soon-to-open Microsoft and Vantage data centers. Meta projects the facility will use 220 megawatts at peak, less than half the projected use of the Mount Pleasant and Port Washington campuses. But even that comparatively modest demand would be six to eight times the current peak for all of Beaver Dam.
In testimony to the PSC in November, Rebecca Valcq, Alliant’s assistant vice president for regulatory affairs and data center services, said the Beaver Dam campus would benefit other customers by “making more efficient use of existing infrastructure” and “spreading fixed costs” across a larger base. She also urged commissioners to consider the data center’s projected $2.1 million in annual local, state and federal tax revenue, among other economic benefits.
Alliant is a founding member of the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition, which promotes the state as a destination for data center developers.
Unlike We Energies, Alliant says it does not expect to immediately build new power plants to serve the Beaver Dam campus. Instead, Meta would purchase electricity from the same generators as the rest of Alliant’s customers. Hawkins noted on Thursday that even if the new data center doesn’t immediately require new generators, it might change the retirement timelines for Alliant’s existing power plants.
Contract negotiated in secret
The utility negotiated its contract with Meta behind closed doors. When it approached the PSC, it asked for approval without changes and requested extensive redactions, hiding many contract terms from the public. Alliant argued that the contract’s specific terms, and the surrounding secrecy, were needed to “attract and accommodate” Meta — and to compete with other states or utility territories courting data center development.
The redactions spurred pushback from ratepayer advocates and the PSC itself, which made more details of the contract available as the case progressed. In Thursday’s hearing, Strand drew parallels with the nondisclosure agreements some data center developers seek from local governments in Wisconsin, including Meta in Beaver Dam, which Wisconsin Watch first reported on in January.
“For some of these new private sector, big tech data center customers that are used to operating confidentially, coming into our state or coming into this process might be a shock to the system,” Strand said. “There is still this black-box approach that includes nondisclosure agreements, heavily redacted filings, corporate pseudonyms and negotiations shrouded in secrecy… This lack of transparency is hurting, not helping.”
The nonprofit law center Midwest Environmental Advocates in December sued the PSC to obtain unredacted documents from the Alliant case. That lawsuit is ongoing.
PSC adds protections, warns of gaps
Alliant proposed some protections for itself and non-data center customers. It set a floor for Alliant’s revenues from Meta, protecting the utility in a scenario in which the data center uses less electricity than initially anticipated.
That minimum covers the cost of building transmission lines to serve the data center. The American Transmission Company, the largest transmission operator in Wisconsin, is currently building a $200 million line to plug in the Beaver Dam campus.
Construction unfolds at the 350-plus-acre Beaver Dam Commerce Park, the site of a Meta data center, Jan. 20, 2026, in Beaver Dam, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Alliant also proposed requiring Meta to reimburse the utility for the costs of transmission infrastructure if the tech giant backs out of the Beaver Dam project before the new line is complete — and requiring Meta to put up collateral in case its credit rating falls.
The PSC agreed with those terms and added further protections, including requiring Alliant to regularly report on the costs of serving the Beaver Dam campus and leaving the door open for the commission to adjust the cost-sharing to shield other customers from unanticipated expenses.
Commissioners identified some ratepayer protections beyond what it has authority to require. The transmission buildout needed to serve data centers is largely outside of PSC jurisdiction. Much of that authority instead rests with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees transmission utilities nationwide, and the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), a nonprofit that manages much of the Midwest’s electrical grid.
MISO awarded the transmission line project that will serve the Beaver Dam data center to ATC, which spreads construction costs across all its Wisconsin customers, most of whom are outside Alliant’s territory. While Alliant’s new contract requires Meta to pay a minimum transmission fee to shield other Alliant customers from unexpected costs, those protections don’t extend to customers of other utilities using ATC’s transmission lines.
Alliant’s customers will also pick up “tens of millions of dollars” in transmission costs tied to data centers in other Wisconsin electrical utility territories, Hawkins said. “Whether or not that is appropriate — or something that we are being open-eyed about — is a concern of mine,” he added.
Commissioners on Thursday urged Alliant to begin discussions with ATC on a fairer method for distributing costs — one of the few options within commission authority.
The commission directed Alliant to produce a standardized plan before making agreements with new data center customers.
The PSC is aware that more data centers could come to Alliant’s turf.
“Evidence indicates there are 12 other potential data centers in this utility’s territory that are potentially in the works,” Nieto said. Given that future, she added, Alliant must “establish clear rates, terms and protections and provide transparency, regulatory clarity and public accountability as required when serving loads capable of reshaping a utility’s entire system.”
Ratepayer groups say PSC sent clear message
Ratepayer advocates welcomed Thursday’s decision while emphasizing the importance of the directive to outline a standardized payment structure for future data centers.
“While the PSC approved Alliant’s contract, with modifications, for Meta’s Beaver Dam data center, the Commissioners recognized that continued one-off, bilateral contract negotiations are not sufficiently protective of Wisconsin families and small businesses,” Brett Korte, a staff attorney with Clean Wisconsin, said in a press release.
“Today’s PSC decision requiring Alliant to develop a tariff for future data centers will result in a consistent, transparent framework that helps protect the public interest.”
Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board Executive Director Tom Content echoed commissioners’ hopes that Alliant and other electrical utilities will reach an agreement with ATC to protect non-data center customers from transmission-related cost shifts.
“We’re calling on ATC to protect customers across Wisconsin and Michigan to make sure people who aren’t even (customers of) these utilities aren’t on the hook,” he told Wisconsin Watch.
Alliant raised no immediate objections to the PSC’s changes.
“Protecting our customers while allowing communities to grow is central to our commitment at Alliant Energy, and that’s exactly what this contract is designed to do,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement on Thursday afternoon. “It maintains reliability, supports meaningful local economic benefits, and delivers benefits that help keep rates stable for all customers.”
In a quarterly earnings call last week, the company announced plans for a 370-megawatt electric service agreement with a data center customer in Iowa. Unlike Wisconsin’s PSC, Iowa’s utility regulator has been more open to one-off contracts between utilities and data centers.
By removing that option for Alliant’s future arrangements with data center customers, Content said, the PSC’s latest ruling could set a new standard for other utilities in the state.
“They’re sending a message,” he added. “None of this individual contract stuff.”
An attorney read from a laptop propped atop a snowplow.
To his left was a Caterpillar street grader, and to his right, a dusty workbench. A disheveled American flag hung next to a red toolbox in the center of the impromptu stage.
Dozens of southwest Wisconsin residents recently forsook part of the local high school’s track-and-field meet so they could cast their votes inside the town of Cassville’s garage. The attorney had been retained by the town’s elected leaders to read the soon-to-be-newest regulation.
The unanimous outcome — 44 ballots in favor of banning data centers, none against — reflected a hostile backlash to unwelcome big tech incursions into rural spaces.
Residents instructed their town board to put a stop to the billion-dollar proposal by an anonymous developer after learning their community was on the short list.
The pastoral landscape — known for rolling bluffs that straddle the locks and dams of the nation’s upper Mississippi River — possesses a bountiful aquifer, a temperate climate and few land regulations.
The latest move against data centers
Cassville’s ordinance is the latest move by a Midwestern community seeking to protect the qualities that make life so appealing to people — and data centers.
Pushback over the power-hungry facilities that make the cloud run are occurring across the country, as companies expand in states like Mississippi and Tennessee.
Residents in Port Washington, Wisconsin, were the first in the nation to pass a referendum that would prevent their city from offering generous tax incentives without first obtaining voter approval.
And in Clayton County, Iowa, directly across the river from Cassville, officials are considering zoning, setback and size restrictions.
Cassville residents fear data centers will devalue their properties, contaminate their wells and increase their electric bills.
“This is the Driftless area for Christ’s sakes,” said John Hawn, who retired to the area several years ago. “I suppose they didn’t expect any problems coming into a small town.”
‘There’s no information’
The Cassville project has been shrouded in secrecy. That includes the proposed location and what company will use it, leaving residents to fill in the vacuum with a frenzy of social media engagement.
“I don’t know really what to think about it because there’s no information,” town Supervisor Scott Riedl said.
Ron Brisbois, executive director of the Grant County Economic Development Corp., has met with a developer but to date declined to identify the company that is scouting for locations so as not to jeopardize the project.
In an interview after Cassville’s vote, he said the town’s appeal is its proximity to electricity, specifically the high-voltage Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line that entered service in September 2024.
Brisbois estimated the data center would require 400 to 500 megawatts of power — a lot, even by the new transmission line’s standards.
But the town’s attorney, Eric Hagen, said if Cassville can make it inconvenient, the data center developer may look elsewhere. The company also is considering sites in Indiana and North Dakota.
“My read of the situation right now: They’re looking for the lowest-hanging fruit with the least amount of regulations,” Hagen said.
Cassville’s new ordinance prohibits data centers in the town for up to two years and prevents land use changes, such as constructing a residence on a farm field, without the town board’s approval. And the county cannot preempt local zoning authority in the town’s case, Hagen said.
“We can beat them to the punch.”
Data centers raise ire
Days after the town’s vote, Brisbois fielded questions from a concerned public at J&J’s Sandbar, a Cassville restaurant, over chicken and ham, mashed potatoes with gravy and macaroni salad.
He wonders whether the objections reflect data centers’ tarnished image more than concerns over actual water and power use. If a battery or farm equipment manufacturer were to move in and consume more of each, would residents even notice?
Brisbois said the developer has remained quiet for the past month, which he attributes to the lack of local tax incentives for the project rather than community unease.
“I’m looking forward to a bit quieter days,” he said, “where all I have to worry about with townships is housing and maybe an ag or a farm expansion.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Large data centers served by We Energies will pick up the entire tab for new power plants, solar farms and other generators needed to power the massive structures in eastern Wisconsin.
The new agreement, among the first of its kind in the Midwest,“has the potential to fundamentally reshape the utility system,” Commissioner Kristy Nieto said. It will set a precedent for how the utility will divide the costs and benefits of the vast generation buildout needed to support new data centers, including campuses set to open in Port Washington and Mount Pleasant.
The payment structure diverged from We Energies’ initial proposal in several key ways. Most notably, it requires data center operators to cover the full cost of generators and fuel needed to power their facilities.
Under the utility’s original proposal, data centers could have paid for just three-quarters of the cost of new generators. Other customers would have covered the remaining quarter — along with fuel costs — in exchange for revenue from selling excess power during periods of high electricity demand.
“Existing Wisconsin customers should not pay a single cent to subsidize the service of data centers,” Nieto said during Friday’s marathon hearing.
Vast data center energy needs
The scale of data centers’ energy needs leaves utilities and regulators in uncharted territory.
The soon-to-open Vantage data center in Port Washington and Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant will likely require a volume of electricity “comparable to a mid-sized metro area,” PSC Chair Summer Strand said.
The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), which oversees most of the Midwest’s grid, anticipates the region may need to add new generation capacity at twice the current rate to avoid shortfalls within the next five years, largely to accommodate rising electricity demands from new data centers.
We Energies’ new arrangement with data center customers follows a year of negotiation with ratepayer advocates, data center developers and the PSC, which regulates the state’s utilities.
From the outset, We Energies said it aimed to shield current customers from worst-case rate hikes.
Data centers “can and will” operate in Wisconsin with or without a payment model tailored for their needs, Strand said Friday. Over the past year, We Energies argued that without a new rate structure, data centers would pay for electricity as if they were ordinary large industrial customers.
That status quo, We Energies Vice President for Regulatory Affairs Richard Stasik testified in January, would leave other customers paying too much for generators needed to power data centers.
Even under the utility’s original proposal, Stasik argued, customers would have saved $1.5 billion compared with a scenario in which data centers paid under the same structure as smaller industrial customers.
But ratepayer advocates, clean energy groups and some elected officials said We Energies’ proposal would have saddled existing customers with unfair costs and risk.
Critics said customers should not pay at all for power plants needed to serve data centers, even if that means giving up potential revenue.
“Requiring the large customers to own both the costs and the benefits,” wrote Cassie Steiner, a senior campaign coordinator with the Sierra Club of Wisconsin, is the “safest” option for the rest of We Energies’ ratepayers.
The We Energies proposal covered only the largest tier of data centers, critics noted. That would have left Wisconsinites to shoulder costs arising from future facilities that, while smaller than those in Port Washington and Mount Pleasant, would still rank among the state’s largest energy users.
“Smaller data centers pose the same level of risk,” Steiner wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.
The PSC echoed such concerns on Friday. Commissioners said the structure they approved offered stronger ratepayer protections without tossing aside much of what We Energies negotiated with Vantage and Microsoft.
“I disagree with those that suggested we should simply reject the proposal and send the applicants back to the drawing board,” Commissioner Marcus Hawkins said. He acknowledged the utility’s willingness from the outset to protect non-data center customers, including supporting a requirement that data center operators pay the full cost of generators built to serve them even if they withdraw early from their service contracts.
The three commissioners unanimously agreed that the new payment structure also applied to data centers far smaller than those in Port Washington and Mount Pleasant. Under the new structure, any customer using more than 100 megawatts at peak demand must “subscribe” to enough generators, either existing or newly built, to meet that peak.
The PSC retained We Energies’ plan to give data center operators leeway to overshoot their “subscribed” supply before paying a premium for extra electricity.
Ratepayers will still bear transmission costs
Some forms of cost-sharing are mostly outside the PSC’s jurisdiction. The new data centers also require a vast buildout of transmission infrastructure. That undertaking is largely the responsibility of American Transmission Company (ATC), in which Wisconsin’s largest utilities own a majority stake. Because Friday’s case did not directly involve ATC and federal regulators have substantial say in the company’s billing practices, the PSC could only partially address its concerns about the amount non-data center customers will pay to plug in data centers.
By 2027, We Energies’ existing customers will likely pay $63 million for transmission infrastructure needed to serve data centers, Hawkins said. That figure will approach $100 million by 2028.
ATC has not yet reached an agreement with data center operators to limit rate hikes for other customers, but the company is in talks with We Energies on the subject. In what Nieto called a “temporary stopgap measure,” the PSC voted to require a minimum payment for transmission costs based on data centers’ projected energy needs.
If data centers use less electricity than anticipated, Hawkins said, other customers could be left paying more than expected for overbuilt transmission infrastructure — a “huge stranded asset.” The minimum payment requirement could partially shield existing customers in that scenario, but Hawkins added, the issue remains far from resolved.
Despite the loose ends, ratepayer and clean energy advocates welcomed the PSC’s decision as a victory.
“This decision signals that the PSC commissioners heard loud and clear that Wisconsinites have significant concerns about energy affordability and AI data centers,” said Tom Content, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin. “How this gets implemented in future rate cases remains to be seen, but customers’ interests are in a better place.”
We Energies also raised no public objections to the outcome. The ruling “underscores the importance of our plan to ensure data centers pay their full share for the power they use in our state,” spokesperson Brendan Conway said in a press release. “That is important to us and to the data center companies we are working with.”
The decision could reshape We Energies’ separate rate case before the PSC. That case, filed earlier this month, includes a projected 9.2% increase in customers’ electricity rates over the next two years, in part to accommodate the construction of new generation capacity to support data centers.
The PSC and ratepayer advocates alike said Friday that the new payment structure may set a precedent within Wisconsin and beyond. The decision will not go into effect until the PSC issues a final written order.
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Wisconsin in 2023 exempted data centers from the sales tax. A new estimate finds that means the state is missing out on more than $2 billion in revenue from massive data centers under construction.
The estimate does not include related sales tax and other revenue the state is collecting as a result of the construction.
Other states, including Minnesota, are starting to pull back on tax incentives for data centers as public opposition grows.
Wisconsin is poised to forgo more than $2 billion in sales tax revenue to subsidize hyperscale data centers built by trillion-dollar companies such as Microsoft and Meta.
Data centers were granted a sales tax exemption in the 2023-25 state budget, which was approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers as a way to attract economic development to the state.
That means the $1 billion data center in Beaver Dam, a $20 billion complex in Mount Pleasant and a $15 billion facility in Port Washington don’t have to pay the 5% state sales tax, or local sales taxes, on purchases for constructing and equipping their facilities.
When the budget passed in July 2023, the scale of the data center boom was so uncertain that the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau did not estimate how much state revenue would be “forgone” under the exemption, aside from a hypothetical example.
The state will be out $1.5 billion in forgone state sales tax revenue during construction, which can take years, plus $369 million annually once the facilities are built.
The estimates apply to the hyperscale data centers under construction in Beaver Dam and Port Washington and the facilities under construction or planned in Mount Pleasant. A much smaller Epic project in Verona is also part of the estimate.
It’s unclear whether the data centers would have been built in Wisconsin without the tax incentive.
“Obviously it’s a big number, but it’s right to think that this is not really revenue that the state realistically could have ever captured,” said economist Ross Milton, a state government tax expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It seems quite likely that if Wisconsin wasn’t providing incentives of these kinds, we wouldn’t be seeing these data centers being built here.”
Highlighting the fierce competition for development, 38 states offer data center sales tax exemptions or other tax breaks, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Wisconsin offers sales tax exemptions for a wide array of products and services. One of the largest exempts food bought at the grocery store, which reduced state revenue by about $920 million in 2024.
Tricia Braun, executive director of the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition, a business group that supports data center development, pointed out that the fiscal bureau projection does not include economic benefits from data centers, including taxes paid by data center suppliers.
Wisconsin Watch reported in March that just three Wisconsin companies have done more than $1 billion in business supplying data centers.
Jason Stein, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, a nonpartisan think tank, said “the state has good possibilities for recovering” the forgone revenue. That could come from spending by construction workers and income taxes paid by those workers, their employers and permanent data center employees, as well as corporate income taxes and utility taxes, he said.
The unexpectedly large amount of forgone revenue has helped fuel efforts for data center regulation.
State Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin, D-Whitefish Bay, who requested the estimate, said lawmakers should discuss what the state can get in return for the exemption. She said the exemption could be tied to, for example, requirements to protect the environment.
Habush Sinykin wants the Legislature, which Republicans control, to convene what is known as an extraordinary session to discuss a variety of data center bills, rather than waiting until the next regular session in January.
Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, and Rep. Shannon Zimmerman, R-River Falls, introduced legislation in 2023 that led to the exemption and have proposed expanding it. They did not respond to requests for comment.
Their original legislation received more than 200 hours of lobbying support from Microsoft, power companies such as We Energies and Alliant Energy, and business groups. No one registered to lobby against the bill.
Nationally, state data center legislation has shifted from incentives to regulation.
In 2021 and 2022, 44 of the 45 data center bills introduced in states across the U.S. offered tax and economic incentives, according to an analysis released April 22. Since then, many other types of legislation have emerged. In 2026, only 61 of the 262 state data center bills covered incentives. The vast majority dealt with regulation of energy, environment and transparency.
Some states, including Minnesota, have taken steps to restrict or roll back data center sales tax exemptions.
Data center opponent Shawn Haney, a former elected town board member in Dane County, said he understands that Wisconsin created its sales tax exemption to attract economic development. But he thinks it should be modified so that the state can collect some sales tax revenue from data centers.
“I don’t think anybody could have forecasted the size and magnitude of these massive data centers,” Haney said.
“You could do some good things with” the revenue, he said, tossing out a few ideas. “Look at all the roads we have to repair.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Data centers have made headlines and influenced the political debate across Wisconsin this year.
That’s why earlier this year we launched Data(Centers)Watch as a regular feature in Forward, our free Wisconsin government and politics newsletter that comes out on Mondays. Every week since mid-February, reporter Tom Kertscher has provided tidbits of data center news, including the latest from city council and county board meetings where land use decisions are being made amid public outcry, national industry news and recent polling about the issue.
To get these data center updates each Monday, please subscribe. Here’s a look at the updates that appeared in Forward since March.
April 13, 2026
From ballot box to court: The reportedly first data center referendum in the U.S. could make large-scale developments more difficult in Port Washington. Approved last Tuesday by voters in the Ozaukee County city, it was pushed by opponents of the $15 billion data center under construction there. The city now must get referendum approval to create any tax incremental finance district — a business development tool — worth over $10 million. The city created a $175 million TIF district for the data center. Attention now turns to the courts. A hearing is set for Thursday on a business-backed lawsuit seeking to block the referendum from taking effect.
Second poll: Costs outweigh benefits: Some 70% of registered Wisconsin voters believe the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits, according to a Wisconsin Conservation Voters poll taken in February and released last week. The same result was found in a February Marquette Law School poll.
Add-on data center approved: With a $1 billion data center under construction, Beaver Dam has approved a second, much smaller, $40 million data center.
Data center opponent elected: Menomonie City Council member Matthew Crowe, an opponent of a data center proposed for Menomonie, unseated incumbent Mayor Randy Knaack in Tuesday’s election. Crowe cited lack of transparency over the data center proposal as a key to his win. Menomonie is among several Wisconsin communities that signed nondisclosure agreements to hide details of the proposals.
ICYMI: We’ve been discussing our coverage of data center secrecy deals. Recent spots: WUWM radio’s “Lake Effect” show (segment starts at 11:15), Civic Media’s “Nite Lite” show (starts at 23:30) and the Ventures of the Land podcast. We reported that Wisconsin companies are part of a coalition asking a federal agency to pause competitive bidding for electrical transmission projects needed to serve data centers.
Reporter Tom Kertscher is seen at the Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service all-staff meeting held in Madison, Wis., on March 5, 2026. (Narayan Mahon for Wisconsin Watch)
April 6, 2026
Cure for blight? The $8 billion data center proposed for Janesville is unique in that it would involve a $30 million cleanup of the contaminated General Motors plant, which shut down in 2008. The cleanup cost has led 200 potential developments of different types to walk away, the energy and environment-focused E&E News reports. Also noteworthy is this quote from the city manager about power: “One of the most glaring needs that has not yet been addressed is statewide legislation to clarify that data centers pay for 100% of their costs.”
Referendum on Tuesday’s ballot: A referendum that could make large-scale developments more difficult is on Tuesday’s election ballots in Port Washington. It was pushed by opponents of the $15 billion data center under construction there. If the referendum is approved, the city would have to get referendum approval to create any tax incremental finance district — a business development tool — worth over $10 million. The city created a $175 million TIF district for the data center.
Limiting public comment: The city council in Beaver Dam, where one hyperscale data center is under construction and a smaller one is proposed, limited the public comment at its meeting last week to 20 minutes. That irked some data center opponents because the period is usually open-ended, though each individual is asked to speak for two minutes. Mayor Bobbi Marck told Wisconsin Watch several items were likely to involve lengthy discussion and the comment limit was meant to use the council’s time effectively. All 10 speakers criticized data centers and the council, including Jackson Brook, 18, who said the council made data center decisions too quickly and without enough public input.
Legislative intent/inaction on NDAs: Commenting on the Legislature ending its 2025-26 session without approving any data center bills, Milwaukee data center attorney Rod Carter cited legislation that would have prohibited local governments from signing nondisclosure agreements with data center developers. “The legislative intent was clear: the era of secret data center deals in Wisconsin should be over,” he wrote. “Whether that intent becomes law remains an open question.”
March 30
Town chair calls cops on petitioner: In Grant County, which is one location being considered for a $1 billion data center, Waterloo town chair Chad Brinkman called the sheriff’s office March 21 asking that resident Richard Stelpflug be removed from public property. Stelpflug was collecting signatures on a petition seeking to have the town authorize “village powers” — which the neighboring town of Cassville did March 12 to try to get more control over any data center proposal. A sheriff’s deputy informed Brinkman that Stelpflug had a First Amendment right to circulate a petition on public property — which happened to be the Waterloo Township Shop and Hall. As it turns out, the town already adopted village powers in 1965. An update on where Grant County stands among sites being considered is expected soon.
Rock County also signed NDA: A Rock County Board committee voted down a resolution prohibiting county employees from signing nondisclosure agreements. Pointing to data center NDAs, the resolution cited concerns “across Wisconsin that the signing of an NDA without the input of the public and elected officials is unethical and risks the public trust.” Wisconsin Watch reported that the town of Beloit in Rock County signed an NDA in February 2025, more than a year before announcing this month that a data center has been proposed. Last week, Rock County responded to a Wisconsin Watch public records request showing it signed an NDA with the same company, Delaware-based Cambrin LLC, in January 2025. Janesville, about 10 miles northeast of the town of Beloit, has also signed a data center NDA, with Colorado-based Viridian Acquisitions.
Alliant Energy’s record stock price: Madison-basedAlliant Energy’s record-high closing stock price reached $73.03 on March 16. The main reason, according to The Motley Fool: an influx of data centers in the Midwest, including one under construction in Beaver Dam.
AI fear fuels opposition? Some opposition to data centers might stem from uneasiness about artificial intelligence. The Marquette Law School Poll found 69% of Wisconsin registered voters surveyed said AI is being developed too quickly. The same percentage said the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits.
ICYMI: Wisconsin Watch looked at competition over who builds out the grid as data centers demand more power.
March 23
No data center legislation: The Legislature considered a number of data center bills but concluded its work in the 2025-26 session without passing any of them. That means data center legislation won’t come up again until the Legislature’s next regular session begins in January. One of the bills, to ban nondisclosure agreements between data center developers and local governments, was introduced by Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie. He told Wisconsin Watch his bill was crowded out by other priorities, but that he’s hopeful it will eventually pass. Also disappointed was GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. He said at an event that requiring data centers to pay for their own electricity, as some legislation would require, is “probably an 80% issue for the public.”
Opposition in Grant County: Cassville township residents voted 54-3 this month to authorize “village powers.” The move gives the township more control over matters such as zoning. It was sought by residents who want more control over any data center proposal. A developer has included Cassville, in the Driftless Area in southwest Wisconsin, as one possible site for a planned $1 billion data center.
ICYMI: Microsoft announced it would stop doing NDAs with local governments amid growing focus on local governments and data center secrecy. We explored data centers’ job implications, particularly for developers, construction and operations. We also fact-checked a claim that Mount Pleasant’s massive data center will use relatively little water. Go here to see our data centers coverage in one place.
March 16
‘Bulletproof’ vest in Port: Port Washington police have been called about a dozen times to Lighthouse, the Vantage-OpenAI-Oracle data center campus, since the construction groundbreaking Dec. 17. Police reports show the largest number involve complaints of either trespassing or excessive construction noise. But on Dec. 26, a security officer on the site reported being told by a motorist she “hopes the vest they wear is really bulletproof.” Police called the motorist and left a voicemail message, according to the report. The motorist did not return calls and emails from Wisconsin Watch.
‘Stranded assets’ targeted: One of the Democratic candidates for governor, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, announced a plan to prohibit residential and other utility customers from having to cover the cost of “stranded assets” — power plants that have been shut down but on which debt is still owed. Wisconsin Watch reported in December that ratepayers owe $1 billion for stranded assets and that the rush to build more plants to serve data centers runs the risk of creating more stranded assets.
‘Stranded assets’ targeted II: In a model for state data center legislation, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Water Policy proposed making data center companies financially responsible for stranded assets. The companies would be required to post a bond.
Beaver Dam limits public comment: The city council in Beaver Dam, where one data center is under construction and another is proposed, is limiting to 20 minutes total the public comment at its meeting tonight. That raised concerns among data center opponents, some of whom packed a town hall meeting on data centers last week. Typically, the council’s public comment period is open-ended, though individuals are each asked to limit their remarks to two minutes. Mayor Bobbi Marck said several items are likely to involve lengthy discussion and the comment limit is meant to use the council’s time effectively. Ald. Nancy Wild said data center opponents have spoken at the previous eight council meetings. “I think we have been very reasonable,” she said.
March 9
Quietly, a possible Beloit data center: News of a possible data center in the town of Beloit comes eight months after the town quietly signed a predevelopment agreement. Last week, the town, saying it was responding to information “being disseminated” about a possible data center, announced it had begun “very preliminary discussions,” including signing the agreement. The town board in May approved negotiating a predevelopment agreement with Delaware-based Cambrin LLC, but the meeting minutes do not mention a data center. The predevelopment agreement, signed in July, also does not mention a data center. It says that the town will pursue a tax incremental district to finance infrastructure improvements that would be needed and that Cambrin agreed to reimburse the town up to $175,000 for preliminary work. “If the project actually moves forward, we would have a frank discussion with the developer about who should be paying for any improvements that are needed,” town administrator John Malizio told Wisconsin Watch. Newsreports indicate that Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, could be the data center operator.
Data centers’ $1 billion for Wisconsin: Even before the first hyperscale data center begins operation in Wisconsin, data centers have made an economic impact in the state. No comprehensive tally has been done. But just three Wisconsin companies have received more than $1 billion of business supplying data centers, and other companies are benefiting, too, Wisconsin Watch found. That’s separate from the economic impact from constructing data centers.
Electric-onnections: The data centers under construction in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington came together because a We Energies executive met the co-founder of Cloverleaf Infrastructure, which secures power and land for data centers, The New York Times reported. “We’ve got the site for you,” the executive said at a Chicago conference in 2021, proposing Mount Pleasant and, later, Port Washington.
March 2
Who pays for the power: The state Public Service Commission held a hearing last week on who will pay for providing the electricity needed to run the $1 billion data center being constructed in Beaver Dam. The center is owned by Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram. Opponents said the rate structure proposed by Alliant Energy doesn’t protect general ratepayers from bearing some of the costs. The same concerns have been raised to the PSC about We Energies’ proposed rates for data centers in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington. Comments on the Alliant case can be submitted through March 9. That deadline was extended after Alliant agreed to remove some redactions it made in its application to the PSC.
Legislation delayed, in doubt: One bill on data centers might see action, but others are likely on ice now that the state Assembly has adjourned for the 2025-26 session. The Senate could still act on an Assembly-approved bill that seeks to limit how much general ratepayers can be charged by utilities for the cost of providing electricity to data centers. It’s likely that various bills that would prohibit local governments from signing nondisclosure agreements with data center developers won’t be considered again until a new Legislature convenes in January.
Blocking a possible data center: A move is afoot to block a possible data center in Grant County in southwest Wisconsin. Doug Schauff, the town chair in Cassville, said the town will hold a meeting March 12 on adopting “village powers.” That, in turn, would enable the town to create zoning that would regulate projects such as a data center. A data center developer has told the town it is considering the Cassville area, among other locations, for a possible $1 billion facility.
Port Washington referendum: An April 7 referendum in Port Washington pushed by data center opponents can proceed as scheduled, a judge ruled last week. Pro-business groups had sued to try to stop the vote. If the referendum is approved, the city would have to get referendum approval to create any future tax incremental finance district – a business development tool – worth over $10 million. The city created a $175 million TIF district for the $15 billion Open AI/Oracle data center now under construction in Port Washington.
From DeForest to Iowa: Virginia-based QTS Data Centers will build in Iowa a data center it had planned for the Madison suburb of DeForest, according to Alliant Energy, which will supply the electricity. Amid community opposition, the $12 billion facility proposed for DeForest was abruptly dropped in January after Wisconsin Watch reported that village officials had worked on the proposal for months before announcing it to the public.
Voters down on data centers: Regardless of how much they have heard about data centers, most registered Wisconsin voters polled by Marquette Law School said the costs outweigh the benefits. Opposition was 74% among those who have heard a lot about data centers, 73% among those who had heard nothing at all and 68% who had heard a little.
Expect delays? Some 30-50% of data centers projected to open worldwide in 2026 could be delayed, according to the Sightline Climate research firm: Access to electricity is a key reason, and more data center operators are building their own power rather than relying on the grid.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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