Hyperscale data centers have been making headlines across the state, and these proposals have triggered tiers of key political decisions at the state and local levels. While opponents have been visible and vocal about their concerns about huge power demand, water and land use, impacts to electric bills, tax incentives, local zoning and more, it is easy to wonder if this is a vocal minority. New data confirms that this is not the case.
Wisconsinites across geographies and political affiliations have a strong dislike for data centers, with concerns centered around affordability, energy, and water.
Public Service Commission Dockets
There have been two recent Public Service Commission (PSC) cases that consider how much a data center has to pay for its electricity infrastructure and fuel. Both cases garnered high levels of public participation, with widespread agreement that Big Tech should pay for 100% of its costs.
Staff and volunteers from the Sierra Club and the Wisconsin Ecojustice Basebuilders
read through all 2,209 comments in the WEC Tariff docket and all 601 comments in the Alliant Contract case and cataloged the concerns raised.
WEC Large Customer Tariff & Bespoke Resources Docket
This docket considered how much hyperscale data centers in We Energies and WPS territory have to pay for power generation, fuel and infrastructure. Of the more than 2,000 written public comments, 98.5% disapproved of WEC’s tariff structures as currently proposed.
The top-mentioned themes in the public comments were:
Fair & Full Payment by Big Tech: Commenters called for data centers and other large customers to pay for 100% of their infrastructure and fuel costs.
Climate Change: concerns over increased power demand, fossil fuel generation and related emissions were top of mind. Commenters strongly advocated for clean energy requirements, citing benefits to public health, affordability, fuel price stability, and the climate.
Energy Burden & Ratepayer Protections: unaffordable energy rates, disparities in those rates, and concerns over costs shifting from data center customers to residential ratepayers reinforced the point that commenters were asking for Big Tech to pay its full share of the costs.
Other common themes included that the tariff threshold was too large, the need for demand response, desire for long term planning, concerns about negative health impacts, and a call for no new fossil fuel generation.
Some of the other solutions mentioned by commenters included assuring that the tariff was transparent, well enforced, longer in term, and applied to more large load customers (starting at a MW threshold between 20 and 100, rather than 500 MW as proposed by WEC). Several commenters opposed hyperscale data centers in general and called for a moratorium on construction, or expressed dislike for AI use.
These comments were consistent with the expert testimony and concerns we filed earlier this year that found, among other things, WEC's proposed tariff could increase costs off all ratepayers. If WEC relies on gas plants to fuel the energy centers, all Wisconsinites could see their energy bills rise due to supply-and-demand dynamics.
Alliant Energy Customer Contract for Beaver Dam Data Center
This docket considered how much the Beaver Dam data center will pay for its power. Unfortunately, much of the proposed contract was redacted from public view prior to the public hearing. This was a key theme in the verbal comments. Fortunately, the Administrative Law Judge required Alliant Energy to refile the contract with fewer redactions and extended the comment period by a few days.
Major themes in this comment period were similar to that in the WEC tariff. Similar to the other dockett, an overwhelming majority opposed Alliant's proposal.
The majority of commenters were concerned about the rate impacts and wanted to see fair rates and attention to the additional energy burden that the contract could cause.
Clean energy and climate change were again top concerns by commenters.
Given the heavy redactions in the original filing, transparency was also a major concern mentioned by commenters.
As with the WEC proposal, commenters also offered solutions that would put up some guardrails on data centers.
Over 2/3 of the commenters wanted the Public Service Commission to deny the contract proposal and force Alliant to create a large customer tariff, like We Energies has proposed.
93% of verbal comments and 85% of written public comments given in this case said that data centers should pay for 100% of their costs.
Many commenters pointed out that paying for 100% of the costs, includes all new infrastructure created to power data centers.
Requiring clean energy was a must for most of the commenters as well.
Other Hearings Show the Same Trend
These comments periods were followed by a hearing hosted by the Department of Natural Resources about the air permit for the Vantage data center in Port Washington. 100% of verbal comments opposed the air permit, sharing concerns about air quality, carbon emissions and health impacts.
These analyses were announced a press conference earlier today. You can watch it here.
Thank you to the volunteers who spent hours reading through and cataloging the comments. Thank you to everyone who commented or testified at the hearings.