New National Sierra Club Report Spotlights We Energies Failing the Clean Energy Transition Amid Data Center Surge

If you get electricity from We Energies in Wisconsin, a new Sierra Club report gives the utility its worst grade yet: 4 out of 100 in the group's annual "Dirty Truth" scorecard, which rates utilities on how fast they're retiring coal, how much new gas they're building, and how much renewable power they're adding. We Energies has delayed retiring its Oak Creek coal plant for a third time and plans to add 1.2 gigawatts of new gas power by 2035, nearly a 50 percent jump in its gas capacity. Much of that new gas capacity is tied to the utility's push to attract large AI data centers to Wisconsin.

The utility is also proposing a 14 percent increase in customer bills. Sierra Club says there isn't enough clarity on how the company plans to shield existing households from costs tied to the new data center demand. Of more than 1,800 public comments filed with the state's Public Service Commission, 91 percent opposed the rate hike, with affordability the top concern and many commenters calling for cuts to executive and shareholder pay instead.

Nationally, the report's 76 utilities averaged just 7 out of 100, the lowest score since the report began, as utilities across the country lean on gas and coal rather than cheaper renewable power to meet rising demand, much of it from data centers. For Wisconsin homeowners, the immediate stakes are the proposed rate increase and a utility mix that is leaning more on fossil fuel plants rather than less.