(The Center Square) – Data center projects across Wisconsin have been moving forward as the state’s energy demands are set to increase significantly in upcoming years and transmission rates in the state have already increased.
The rates for American Transmission Co. have gone up 43% since 2019 while the consumer price index has increased 27% over that time, according to the Ratepayer Protection Coalition.
“All the state’s investor-owned utilities have announced unprecedented levels of new capital expenditure plans. ATC’s latest 10-year expansion plan, triple its 2019 level, totals $10 billion, or approximately $1 billion per year,” the group said. “With ATC’s rate base set to double between 2025 and 2029, transmission costs will continue to apply upward pressure on customer bills.“
Five large data center projects are in the works in the state, according to a recent Badger Institute report, including the Vantage Data Center in Port Washington, set to be the largest energy user in Wisconsin history with Vantage asking for 1.3 gigawatts of energy to be available by 2027 and ultimately 3.5 gigawatts of power.
Data centers are becoming increasingly necessary as cloud-based memory and computing capabilities increase but tax incentives for those centers are questioned due to the lack of long-term jobs at the sites, the energy needs and the potential increase in consumer energy bills that accompany those data centers.
During energy discussions earlier this year, Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard, said that a new Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant would use the same amount of energy as the city of Madison and the Port Washington data center would use the same amount of power as the entire city of Los Angeles.
That demand for power is leading to both a push for new and reliable energy sources for the future – including a nuclear siting plan – and projections that the average American’s energy bill could increase from 25% to 70% in the next 10 years without intervention from policymakers, according to Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Jack Kemp Foundation.
Badger Institute has pushed for Wisconsin to prioritize and become a national leader in nuclear energy to fulfill the impending energy demand.
Along with Port Washington, the group also highlighted the plans in Mount Pleasant, Beaver Dam, Caledonia and potential projects in Vienna and Janesville, where the city is looking for a data center company to take over the city-owned 240-acre former General Motors Assembly Plant, vacant since 2008.
Meanwhile, state lawmakers have exempted data center construction materials from taxes and are looking to make a statewide exception to its tax increment financing rules, which limit a municipality from having more than 12% of the entity's property tax value in a TIF.
Voters across the U.S. have said they don’t want data centers built in their community and even more oppose the data centers if tax incentives are awarded to have them built, according to a recent poll by Libertas Network.
A least 10 states are currently losing $100 million or more in taxes from data centers, according to an April report from Good Jobs First.
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