Stop approving Wisconsin’s energy future one docket at a time

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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