In a recent guest column, I argued that Wisconsin’s clean energy future is about affordability, jobs, manufacturing and economic competitiveness.

The next question is equally important:

How should we build that future?

Not one regulatory docket at a time.

Wisconsin stands at one of the most consequential energy crossroads in its history. Artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and electrification are driving electricity demand faster than anyone anticipated. The Public Service Commission’s draft Strategic Energy Assessment projects peak demand could increase by more than 40 percent by 2032, with more than 70 percent of that growth tied to just three proposed hyperscale data centers.

Those investments present tremendous economic opportunities. They also require smarter planning.

Today, the PSC is evaluating the Foundry Ridge and Red Oak Ridge methane gas plants alongside transmission projects, data center tariffs, utility investments, and other major infrastructure. Each proceeding examines a single project. None asks the broader question:

Taken together, are these investments the lowest-cost, lowest-risk path to Wisconsin’s energy future?

Without comprehensive resource planning, regulators have little opportunity to compare alternatives before committing customers to decades of infrastructure costs.

Affordable electricity is economic development.

The decisions made today will determine what Wisconsin families, businesses, manufacturers, and farmers pay for electricity for decades. They will also affect water resources, public health, and our state’s long-term competitiveness.

This is not an argument against growth. Wisconsin will continue to attract investment in advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and data centers. The question is not whether growth occurs, but whether it is planned responsibly so that large energy users pay the costs they create rather than shifting risks onto everyone else.

Planning should begin by comparing complete portfolios of resources instead of evaluating projects in isolation.

Before approving new methane gas plants, regulators should determine whether expanded battery storage, demand response, distributed energy resources, energy efficiency, and additional wind and solar generation can provide the same reliability at lower long-term cost and lower financial risk.

The cleanest megawatt is often the one that never has to be generated.

Demand response is infrastructure. Every megawatt shifted away from peak demand reduces pressure on the grid and can delay or eliminate the need for costly new power plants. Large customers, including data centers, have enormous opportunities to shift demand through operational flexibility and advanced controls.

Battery storage also deserves greater attention. Increasingly, it competes directly with natural gas by providing reliability during periods of peak demand while avoiding decades of fuel costs and emissions.

Water belongs in this conversation as well.

Both data centers and methane gas plants can require substantial water for cooling. The proposed Red Oak Ridge facility alone could consume hundreds of thousands of gallons each day. In rural Wisconsin, where farms, private wells, trout streams, wetlands, and local economies depend on reliable water supplies, those impacts deserve careful scrutiny before permits are approved.

Natural gas will likely remain part of Wisconsin’s energy mix during the transition. But every new gas plant also commits customers to decades of fuel-price risk driven by commodity markets, pipeline constraints, extreme weather, LNG exports, and geopolitical uncertainty. Clean energy resources, by contrast, have no fuel costs and are often the lowest-cost, fastest-to-deploy options available.

Reliability and clean energy are not competing goals.

Modern planning can deliver both.

Wisconsin should also modernize its regulatory framework by evaluating the cumulative impacts of related infrastructure investments. Generation, transmission, data centers, water use, and utility planning are interconnected. They should be planned together, not approved one docket at a time.

Wisconsin has everything it needs to lead: world-class manufacturers, innovative businesses, skilled workers, abundant renewable resources, productive farmland, and a clean energy economy that already employs more than 75,000 people.

Wisconsin does not have an electricity shortage.

It has a planning challenge.

Planning reduces costs. It improves reliability. It protects water resources. It strengthens economic competitiveness.

Most importantly, it allows Wisconsin to build an energy system designed for 2050, rather than one modeled in 1990.

Instead of approving Wisconsin’s energy future one docket at a time, let’s build it through one comprehensive plan.

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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.

We Energies asked the PSC in June to reconsider the credit requirements, arguing that the rule unfairly penalizes Oracle based on an overly cautious reading of the company’s financial health. 

“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. 

The PSC declined to reconsider the requirements last week.

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.

Oracle credit rating drops amid Wisconsin fight over data center credit rules is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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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.

Wisconsin lawmakers have repeatedly rejected ROFR proposals, including one introduced in 2025 by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

Data centers raise the stakes

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.

Fight over who expands Wisconsin’s power grid heads to Washington is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Consumers are unlikely to see any relief in gas and electric bills as utilities proposed more than $18 billion in rate hikes across the country over the first half of the year.

The consumer advocacy group PowerLines reported that utilities asked regulators for a record $9.2 billion in cumulative rate increases during the second quarter of this year. Those requested rate increases could affect more than 56 million U.S. customers.

Utilities in Southern states requested the largest increase in rates, totaling $4.5 billion across more than 26 million customers. 

Consumers in the Midwest face $2.7 billion in requested rate hikes across 14 million customers, while nearly the same amount of Western customers face $1.5 billion, PowerLines reported.

Most Americans get their electricity from utilities that must seek state consent for rate changes, with appointed or elected state boards approving price structures. 

The report, released Tuesday, comes as millions of Americans are already struggling to afford rising electricity bills: One in six American households are behind on utility bills, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. 

Public outcry over rising utility prices has pushed state regulators and lawmakers to consider rate freezes, additional energy assistance funds or new rates targeting large energy users such as data centers. 

Regulators often approve increases at lower rates than requested by utilities, so state officials will determine what additional costs are passed onto consumers. But PowerLines notes regulators rarely outright reject rate requests. Its analysis of 2025 rate requests, for example, found just two of 83 requests were rejected, though half were still pending at the beginning of this year.

Since 2021, electric and gas utilities have accelerated the speed at which they ask regulators for new price increases, the report said. 

PowerLines found that electric company Oncor in Texas requested the largest rate increase of the quarter, with a $1.2 billion request, part of its 5-year investment plan to meet demand from oil and gas companies and data centers. 

Dominion Energy in Virginia sought $1.5 billion across three rate requests, including a $1.1 billion request in unrecovered fuel costs. In Michigan, DTE Energy and Consumers Energy have requested about $500 million each in rate increases. 

“With more than $18 billion in requests already on the table for 2026, regulators face mounting pressure to scrutinize utility spending plans while balancing the infrastructure investments that a modernizing grid genuinely requires,” the report concluded.  

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents the nation’s investor-owned electric utilities, says its members are focused on keeping energy reliable and affordable. Drew Maloney, president and CEO, pushed for permitting reforms at an energy summit last month, saying as much as a quarter of consumer bills are driven by “regulatory bureaucratic red tape.”

But Maloney acknowledged that energy costs are part of broader affordability concerns facing American consumers. 

“We understand that energy costs are a component of that,” he said, “and every one of our members has programs that help people that need different relief from their electrical bills.” 

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, issued an executive order Tuesday that puts a moratorium on the construction of large-scale data centers.

The pause, which will last up to a year, is the nation’s first statewide ban on data centers, which have drawn increasing concern from lawmakers and citizens based on their impact on electricity prices and the energy grid.

“As data center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it’s my responsibility to take action and lead,” Hochul said in a statement.

Technology companies have invested billions of dollars to build data centers all across the country, driven in part by the computing demands from artificial intelligence.

In her executive order, Hochul directed the state Department of Public Service to issue no new permits for large-scale data centers for a  year. During that period, the agency will conduct an environmental analysis on the impacts of data centers, along with a proceeding to “require data centers to either pay more for their energy or supply their own.”

New York lawmakers passed a more extensive data center moratorium last month, but Hochul has not said whether she will sign the bill.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills, also a Democrat, vetoed a measure earlier this year that would have been the first statewide data center ban.

In a news release, Hochul also directed the state’s economic development agency to develop a framework that local communities can use to negotiate with tech companies that seek to construct data centers. That framework will focus on infrastructure improvements, child care investments, direct financial support and labor and wage standards.

She also announced plans for a fund that would require data centers to invest in New York’s grid infrastructure and clean energy supply. And she called on lawmakers to repeal the state’s sales tax exemptions for large data centers.

Across the country, data centers have drawn vocal opposition at local public meetings and in state capitols. Several cities and counties will vote on ballot measures this year to restrict the development of new data centers.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

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Milwaukee’s Public Transportation, Utilities and Waterways Review Board waded into the statewide fight over utility regulation on Wednesday with a three-hour hearing discussing forming a publicly-owned electric utility. 

The proposed starting point: assuming control over We Energies’ infrastructure within city limits.

“Energy networks are best delivered by monopolies,” said Jim Carpenter, a board member. “The problem is that We Energies is a profit-driven monopoly, and sometimes profits get in the way of providing the best solution to a problem.”

The board has no power to recommend action by Milwaukee’s Common Council; Wednesday’s meeting was the board’s first since 2023. Instead, Aldermen Alex Brower and Robert Bauman used the hearing to open a discussion about the viability, risks and potential benefits of a possible city-owned electric utility. Backers and critics alike packed the board room, some eager to weigh in on the proposal.

“Everyone deserves to have savings. Everyone deserves to have the option to have control over their power,” said Cleopatra White, a working-class single mother in Milwaukee’s Southgate neighborhood. 

She said she wanted to show support for creating a publicly-owned utility because it’s an issue that affects everyone in Milwaukee, regardless of political party. 

What is a public utility? 

Wisconsin’s publicly-owned utilities — Manitowoc Public Utilities, for instance — generate roughly 11% of the electricity produced in the state, often with lower electric rates than their investor-owned counterparts. 

Wisconsin law allows municipalities to acquire utilities’ property, but that option is largely untested.

Brower pitched the takeover as a means to shield residents from electrical rate increases. We Energies filed its most recent rate case in April, projecting a roughly 9.3% increase in customers’ electricity rates over the next two years. 

But the plan faces pushback from We Energies and the union representing its workers. They argue that residents benefit from the economies of scale that a large, well-established utility provides.

“Reliability is not created by changing who owns the utility,” said James Meyer, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 2150. “It comes from trained workers, proven emergency response systems and the ability to move crews, equipment and materials quickly when customers need help. Milwaukee has that today, and this proposal puts it at risk.”

We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway said his company is responsive to ratepayers’ concerns about costs and service. 

“We know many families in Milwaukee are feeling pressure from rising energy costs, and we’re focused on keeping bills low while delivering the reliable energy customers count on every day,” Conway wrote in an email. 

How would a municipal utility be created? 

State law offers two routes for municipalities to assume control of utility infrastructure within their territory: seizing the facilities through eminent domain or negotiating a purchase agreement. 

The eminent domain route would likely require legal action by the city to prove the “necessity of the taking,” attorneys working with the Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) wrote ahead of Wednesday’s hearing. 

Brower won his seat representing District 3 in a special election last April with the backing of Milwaukee’s DSA chapter, which helps organize the “Power to the People” campaign drumming up support for a municipal electric utility. Many of its members attended the hearing. 

Both options would require a referendum and a hearing before Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission to determine a fair price for We Energies’ property. But Milwaukee’s suburbs rely  on much of the same infrastructure as the city, which could block Milwaukee from acquiring shared infrastructure. 

Shorewood Village Manager Rebecca Ewald, whose community shares a substation with Milwaukee, told Wisconsin Watch that she hasn’t discussed the idea with its sponsors. Oak Creek City Administrator Andrew Vickers declined to comment on the plan; his city, which borders Milwaukee’s southern edge, hosts several We Energies power plants. 

Milwaukee itself has only one We Energies power plant: the Valley Power Plant along the Menomonee River near the city’s central business district. It generates enough electricity to meet roughly 10% of Milwaukee’s annual needs, Conway said. 

Brower argues the current lack of generation within city limits wouldn’t hinder his goals. “We have the power to purchase (electricity) on the wholesale markets,” he told Wisconsin Watch.

State law allows municipal utilities to construct generators outside of their boundaries. In Brower’s view, Milwaukee could expand rooftop solar and battery storage to meet some energy needs — possibly sited on the city’s abundant vacant land.

Municipal control of We Energies’ substations and transmission assets could also mean shrinking the pool of customers paying for that infrastructure, including We Energies’ new mixed-use Juneautown substation in the city’s Historic Third Ward.

Act 10, a 2011 state law stripping most public-sector employees of collective bargaining rights,  also complicates the picture. 

Brower believes a Milwaukee public electrical utility should aim to hire the We Energies workers who currently operate infrastructure within the city, but doing so would make them public-sector employees. “We don’t want that,” he said.

“We are seriously considering a legal option of outsourcing the day-to-day management to a third-party entity once we acquire the utility infrastructure,” he added — a possible workaround to ensure that  employees under a municipal utility would retain their current rights. 

His pitch has yet to sway the IBEW, which generally supports We Energies in cases before the PSC and Legislature. 

“If the workers are forced into uncertainty over pensions, healthcare, seniority, contracts and union protections, many may not move to the city from the utility,” said Sam Rozenberg, an IBEW member and We Energies dispatcher who spoke at the hearing. “They have options. And if they leave, Milwaukee loses more than employees. It loses the people who know this system and know how to restore service safely.”

While there is no guarantee current We Energies workers would join a new municipal electric utility, Ursula Schryver, senior vice president of education, training and events for the American Public Power Association, told the board that Milwaukee could tap into a national network of public utilities to respond to natural disasters.

Other cities explore municipal utilities

Milwaukee isn’t the only city exploring this option. 

St. Petersburg, Florida’s city council approved a feasibility study earlier this year. Ann Arbor, Michigan’s city council voted down a proposal to study a municipal takeover of electric infrastructure last spring, though the plan’s backers now plan to take the matter to voters as a ballot petition.

A similar study commissioned by the San Diego, California city council produced an $8 billion cost estimate,  prompting some city leaders to balk at the idea. The same study also suggested that San Diego residents could recoup the costs in the long run. 

Brower said  San Diego’s deliberations offer a chance to pressure an investor-owned utility to make concessions. Even if the possibility of a municipal takeover in Milwaukee acts as a bargaining chip during an upcoming rate case, he said, “there’s power in winning concessions. But we are fighting for the entire thing.”

Samuel Mendoza, who recently moved with his wife to Milwaukee near the Harambee neighborhood, discussed his experience working in public works for the City of Los Angeles. While he didn’t work under the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, he said the municipal utility paid its nearly 12,000 workers well.

“I’m surprised coming here that there wasn’t already something municipal,” Mendoza said. “Especially things that are really specific to the city, you’d want to have a utility company that could handle those issues instead of just being so widespread.” 

What happens next?

We Energies was absent from the hearing. Brower invited the company to join a meeting with the board or the city’s representatives to make its case. 

As for next steps, Bauman suggested exploring the public utility concept through a task force made up of members of the Common Council, mayoral administration and Department of Public Works and then requesting that the council fund a feasibility study.

Could Milwaukee create its own electric utility? Officials explore taking over We Energies infrastructure within city limits  is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

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.”

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.

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.

Wisconsin lawmakers oppose utility push to pause competition for power line projects is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Tribal utility, localities, and consumer and environmental groups argue tax guidance illegally hurts renewable energy. WASHINGTON, D.C. (Dec. 18, 2025) – A broad array of groups with strong interests in clean and affordable energy sued the IRS and Treasury Department over new rules for tax credits that unfairly and illegally discriminate against wind and solar …

The post IRS Sued Over Anti-Solar and Wind Tax Rules appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.

Hydroelectric energy is the “backbone of clean power,” but an urgent need to improve efficiencies is driving engineers to explore a whirlwind of options Among alternative energy solutions, wind, solar, and hydrogen capture the majority of attention. Yet the combined output from these sources pales in comparison to that of hydroelectric power. Producing more than …

The post Redefining Renewable Energy: A Critical Push to Optimize Hydroelectric Power Efficiency appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.

After the reelection of former President Donald Trump, clean energy advocates across the country are preparing for a White House that will no doubt pursue aggressive rollbacks of climate policies and further expand fossil-fuel production.

Now more than ever, states will need to step up and pursue climate efforts on their own to ​“ensure continued progress toward clean energy,” said Caroline Spears, executive director of the advocacy group Climate Cabinet.

Few states are as important as New York, which is large, Democrat-controlled — and already committed to ambitious clean energy goals. In 2019, the state passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which pledged to reach 70 percent renewable energy by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050.

“New York State can continue to lead without federal support or federal oversight,” said Mandy DeRoche, deputy managing attorney at the advocacy group Earthjustice. ​“We’ll continue our progress regardless, and that will happen in every state no matter what.”

But so far, the Empire State is falling behind on its climate goals. Across a slew of initiatives under New York’s 2019 climate law, regulators are missing key rulemaking deadlines. According to a July report from the state, New York will likely miss its landmark clean energy target for 2030. Right now, it’s on track to get just 53 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by that date, far short of 70 percent.

The report mostly blamed external economic factors, including supply-chain disruptions and high interest rates that led to a spate of major renewable project cancellations. Another issue is skyrocketing energy demand, largely driven by new data centers for crypto mining and AI, as well as microchip manufacturing facilities and the rise in electric vehicles and appliances.

Environmental advocates argue that faltering political will contributes just as much, if not more, to the state’s lackluster progress. Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has expressed ambivalence over meeting looming clean energy targets.

“The costs have gone up so much I now have to say, ​‘What is the cost on the typical New York family?’” Hochul said in a recent TV interview. ​“The goals are still worthy. But we have to think about the collateral damage of these decisions.”

Missing the 2030 deadline would jeopardize many of the state’s other climate goals, including achieving 100 percent zero-emissions energy by 2040 and shuttering ​“peaker” fossil-gas plants that disproportionately spew toxic pollutants into low-income communities and communities of color, in addition to emitting large amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide.

But missing these goals is far from inevitable. From raising energy procurement targets to leaning on public power agencies, climate and legal experts say that there’s still plenty of ways New York can make good on its clean energy pledge.

“We’re not ready to say we can’t meet the 2030 goal,” said DeRoche. ​“Of course, there are obstacles, but the messaging and the approach from the state should be, ​‘This is a statutory obligation, and we will do everything in our power to meet it.’”

How New York could get back on track

On some level, New York’s struggles come down to a straightforward problem: The state doesn’t have enough existing or upcoming renewable energy projects to meet its goals. 

About 30 percent of the state’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources, mostly from upstate hydropower plants built many decades ago.

One bright spot is that New York has already outpaced its 6-gigawatt goal for rooftop and community solar — but its targets for utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage projects, which make up the bulk of its clean energy plan, remain well off-track.

To help solve this, DeRoche and her team at Earthjustice argue in public comments to state energy regulators that New York should vastly increase its renewable energy procurement targets, which set guidelines for how much clean power the state should purchase from private developers. State agencies have determined that they would need to purchase about 14,000 gigawatt hours each year for the next three years to meet the 2030 deadline, yet have recommended procuring only 5,600 gigawatt hours per year.

“The Draft Review provides no basis for setting the target so low,” her team wrote, arguing that state agencies should reevaluate how feasible it would be to procure a higher volume.

New clean energy construction should be prioritized in downstate New York, DeRoche adds, a region that houses most of the state’s population yet relies heavily on fossil fuels compared with the largely hydro- and nuclear-powered upstate areas. The state will also need to address transmission and interconnection backlogs that make it harder to connect new power generation to the grid. Earlier this year, lawmakers passed the RAPID Act to expedite that process for clean energy projects and transmission lines.

Some activists argue that the state itself should take a leading role to develop more clean energy.

Last year, an amendment to the state budget granted the New York Power Authority the ability to build, own, and operate renewable energy projects for the first time. Organizers at the grassroots coalition Public Power New York say that government leaders have yet to capitalize on the change, commonly referred to as the Build Public Renewables Act. In October, NYPA released its first strategic plan for developing renewable energy projects, proposing the installation of 3.5 gigawatts of new clean energy in the next several years.

“This is only the first tranche of NYPA renewables projects,” the report said, with potentially ​“further projects for consideration.”

Andrea Johnson, an organizer with the New York City chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, a member group of Public Power New York, called that number ​“measly.” Public Power New York is rallying for the authority to commit to 15 gigawatts of new clean power by 2030, an amount based on research commissioned by the group.

Expanding clean power at a faster rate would fulfill NYPA’s responsibilities under last year’s expanded authority, which calls on it to build projects when the state falls short on its climate mandates, Johnson said. ​“When the private sector fails — and the private sector is failing — the state needs to step in and actually fill the gap.”

Leveraging NYPA can also allow New York to meet its climate goals at a lower cost, Johnson said. As a nonprofit, public institution, NYPA can access more favorable financing. It also owns and builds transmission lines, allowing it to plan for both energy generation and distribution at the same time, she said. NYPA is also required to provide utility bill credits to low- and moderate-income households for any clean energy produced from its projects.

Beyond building more clean energy, the state should also take steps to ease growing power demand, including strengthening building efficiency standards and accelerating the installation of heat pumps, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.

That includes addressing the rapid growth of crypto mining and AI electricity use and its effects on residents, said DeRoche. State officials noted that those rising energy demands have made it far more difficult to reach clean energy targets. But agencies have policy tools available to understand and reduce unabated growth — and they should start with making sure that discounted electricity rates for cryptocurrency and AI companies aren’t being subsidized by residents, DeRoche said.

Offshore wind’s uncertain future

Any effort to accelerate New York’s adoption of clean energy will need to grapple with challenges in the offshore wind sector, a cornerstone of the state’s strategy that is likely to face even more setbacks under the incoming Trump administration.

New York aims to install 9 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2035, but in the past four years, inflation, high interest rates, and supply-chain issues led developers to pull out of contracts in the state.

That challenging economic environment is now improving, however, according to Atin Jain, an offshore wind analyst at the energy consulting firm BloombergNEF. As inflation has started to ease and interest rates have begun to come down, ​“We have probably passed the worst of it,” Jain said. State officials have been quick to respond to the industry’s economic pressures, he added, expediting auctions to renegotiate previous agreements and adding language in contracts to allow for inflation adjustments.

Two new projects, Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind 1, with 924 and 810 megawatts of capacity, respectively, are currently moving forward in New York. The 132-megawatt South Fork Wind farm went live in March off the coast of Long Island.

But Trump’s reelection casts a new uncertainty over the industry. Trump has vowed to stop offshore wind development ​“on day one” and to ​“terminate” the Inflation Reduction Act. If those declarations end up translating to real policy, then offshore wind, which relies heavily on federal tax credits and requires federal approval and permits to build and operate, could suffer — in New York and beyond.

Still, New York has enshrined a legal mandate to decarbonize its economy — meaning no matter the headwinds, the state has an obligation to follow through, DeRoche said. 

“We hear from the governor that the CLCPA is the nation’s leading climate law,” said DeRoche. ​“Well, it’s only the nation’s leading climate law if we’re implementing it.”

How New York can get on track to meet its big clean energy goals is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Charging stations for electric vehicles are essential for cleaning up the transportation sector. A new study by MIT researchers suggests they’re good for business, too.

The study found that, in California, opening a charging station boosted annual spending at each nearby business by an average of about $1,500 in 2019 and about $400 between January 2021 and June 2023. The spending bump amounts to thousands of extra dollars annually for nearby businesses, with the increase particularly pronounced for businesses in underresourced areas.

The study’s authors hope the research paints a more holistic picture of the benefits of EV charging stations, beyond environmental factors.

“These increases are equal to a significant chunk of the cost of installing an EV charger, and I hope this study sheds light on these economic benefits,” says lead author Yunhan Zheng MCP ’21, SM ’21, PhD ’24, a postdoc at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). “The findings could also diversify the income stream for charger providers and site hosts, and lead to more informed business models for EV charging stations.”

Zheng’s co-authors on the paper, which was published today in Nature Communications, are David Keith, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management; Jinhua Zhao, an MIT professor of cities and transportation; and alumni Shenhao Wang MCP ’17, SM ’17, PhD ’20 and Mi Diao MCP ’06, PhD ’10.

Understanding the EV effect

Increasing the number of electric vehicle charging stations is seen as a key prerequisite for the transition to a cleaner, electrified transportation sector. As such, the 2021 U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act committed $7.5 billion to build a national network of public electric vehicle chargers across the U.S.

But a large amount of private investment will also be needed to make charging stations ubiquitous.

“The U.S. is investing a lot in EV chargers and really encouraging EV adoption, but many EV charging providers can’t make enough money at this stage, and getting to profitability is a major challenge,” Zheng says.

EV advocates have long argued that the presence of charging stations brings economic benefits to surrounding communities, but Zheng says previous studies on their impact relied on surveys or were small-scale. Her team of collaborators wanted to make advocates’ claims more empirical.

For their study, the researchers collected data from over 4,000 charging stations in California and 140,000 businesses, relying on anonymized credit and debit card transactions to measure changes in consumer spending. The researchers used data from 2019 through June of 2023, skipping the year 2020 to minimize the impact of the pandemic.

To judge whether charging stations caused customer spending increases, the researchers compared data from businesses within 500 meters of new charging stations before and after their installation. They also analyzed transactions from similar businesses in the same time frame that weren’t near charging stations.

Supercharging nearby businesses

The researchers found that installing a charging station boosted annual spending at nearby establishments by an average of 1.4 percent in 2019 and 0.8 percent from January 2021 to June 2023.

While that might sound like a small amount per business, it amounts to thousands of dollars in overall consumer spending increases. Specifically, those percentages translate to almost $23,000 in cumulative spending increases in 2019 and about $3,400 per year from 2021 through June 2023.

Zheng says the decline in spending increases over the two time periods might be due to a saturation of EV chargers, leading to lower utilization, as well as an overall decrease in spending per business after the Covid-19 pandemic and a reduced number of businesses served by each EV charging station in the second period. Despite this decline, the annual impact of a charging station on all its surrounding businesses would still cover approximately 11.2 percent of the average infrastructure and installation cost of a standard charging station.

Through both time frames, the spending increases were highest for businesses within about a football field’s distance from the new stations. They were also significant for businesses in disadvantaged and low-income areas, as designated by California and the Justice40 Initiative.

“The positive impacts of EV charging stations on businesses are not constrained solely to some high-income neighborhoods,” Wang says. “It highlights the importance for policymakers to develop EV charging stations in marginalized areas, because they not only foster a cleaner environment, but also serve as a catalyst for enhancing economic vitality.”

Zheng believes the findings hold a lesson for charging station developers seeking to improve the profitability of their projects.

“The joint gas station and convenience store business model could also be adopted to EV charging stations,” Zheng says. “Traditionally, many gas stations are affiliated with retail store chains, which enables owners to both sell fuel and attract customers to diversify their revenue stream. EV charging providers could consider a similar approach to internalize the positive impact of EV charging stations.”

Zheng also says the findings could support the creation of new funding models for charging stations, such as multiple businesses sharing the costs of construction so they can all benefit from the added spending.

Those changes could accelerate the creation of charging networks, but Zheng cautions that further research is needed to understand how much the study’s findings can be extrapolated to other areas. She encourages other researchers to study the economic effects of charging stations and hopes future research includes states beyond California and even other countries.

“A huge number of studies have focused on retail sales effects from traditional transportation infrastructure, such as rail and subway stations, bus stops, and street configurations,” Zhao says. “This research provides evidence for an important, emerging piece of transportation infrastructure and shows a consistently positive effect on local businesses, paving the way for future research in this area.”

The research was supported, in part, by the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and the Singapore National Research Foundation. Diao was partially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China.

© Image: iStock