We Energies seeks $2.3 billion for power from Wisconsin's 1.5 GW AI gas plants as customers pay for dead coal
The state has approved 1.5 gigawatts of gas for data centers, and We Energies has filed to buy the plants for $2.3 billion. The same rate-recovery machinery already leaves Wisconsin customers owing nearly $1 billion for coal plants that went dark years ago.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
A bill that pays for 2018 and 2030 at once
Pleasant Prairie, once Wisconsin's largest coal plant, went dark in 2018, and a line on We Energies bills will keep paying for it until 2039 3. On October 15, 2026, the state Public Service Commission unanimously approved two gas plants for data centers, Foundry Ridge (324 MW, due 2028) and Red Oak Ridge (nearly 1.2 GW, due 2030), about 1.5 GW combined, from Invenergy, a private Chicago developer 1.
We Energies, the utility serving Milwaukee and most of southeast Wisconsin, has already filed to buy power from both plants for a combined $2.3 billion, pending the commission's approval 2. Wisconsin expects electricity demand to rise 40% by 2032, driven by data centers including Microsoft's+0.05% — Microsoft, up 0.05 percent today Mount Pleasant campus and a Port Washington site built for OpenAI$1.18T — OpenAI, private, latest valuation $1.18T and Oracle−1.63% — Oracle, down 1.63 percent today 13.
The plants cleared review without a need test
Wisconsin's merchant statute splits these deals in two, and the first gas projects ever approved this way exposed the gap: Invenergy needed no showing of public need to build, and need is weighed only when the utility acquires the plants, by which time they may already be standing 12.
Commission Chair Summer Strand said regulators were "limited in what we can consider" and called the framework "ripe for legislative action" 1. Commissioner Kristy Nieto named the driver plainly: "gas for AI" 1. UW-Madison researchers project $1.4 billion in health damages and 118 US deaths, 41 of them Wisconsinites, from the plants' particulate pollution over 30 years 5.
$2.3 billion going out, $1 billion never left
The $2.3 billion gas purchase would stack on $1 billion of dead coal debt
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| We Energies gas purchase, pending | $2.3B |
| Coal debt owed statewide | $1B |
| Oak Creek still on the books | $0.65B |
| Securitization savings declined | $0.12B |
The purchase would ride the machinery that already carries the coal debt: utility assets recovered through customer rates at a guaranteed return near 9.8% 3. Oak Creek, a coal plant retiring this year, leaves about $650 million on the books, nearly $30 a year per residential customer for 17 years by RMI's count 34.
In 2024 the commission said it was "disappointed" that We Energies declined securitization, a cheaper refinancing that would have saved customers $117.5 million 34. The listed exposure runs through WEC Energy Group−0.23% — WEC Energy Group, down 0.23 percent as of its last quote (NYSE: WEC), We Energies' Milwaukee-based parent, whose quarterly capital spending hit $1.565 billion in Q3 2025, up 96.5% year over year 8.
WEC's construction spending has roughly doubled since 2023 as the buildout starts
Data
| Capital spending | |
|---|---|
| Q3 '23 | $0.66B |
| Q4 '23 | $0.74B |
| Q1 '24 | $0.45B |
| Q2 '24 | $0.69B |
| Q3 '24 | $0.8B |
| Q4 '24 | $0.85B |
| Q1 '25 | $0.7B |
| Q2 '25 | $0.83B |
| Q3 '25 | $1.57B |
| Q4 '25 | $1.3B |
| Q1 '26 | $0.82B |
| Q2 '26 | $1.26B |
What the utility says, and what November 3 decides
We Energies says most of the coal debt paid for federally mandated pollution controls and its generation overhaul will save customers hundreds of millions; Invenergy cites reliability and jobs 13. Todd Stuart of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group carries the other risk: plants built for data centers that never fully show up, leaving ratepayers "holding the bag" 3. Minnesota bars passing such costs to ratepayers; Wisconsin has no such law 3.
The $2.3 billion filing lands before a commission that the next governor restaffs: on November 3, 2026, voters choose that governor and the entire legislature 67, and Republican candidate Tom Tiffany has vowed to replace the acting commissioners on "day one" 6. Wisconsin's AI boom runs through the same meter that still bills for dead coal.
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