Rick Barrett
450 megawatts would power more than 300,000 homes.
Put into context, the City of Milwaukee has around 262,000 housing units, 61% of which are single-family homes or in duplex buildings, according to a 2023 city estimate.
The data center will, by far, be the largest individual user of electricity in the state, surpassing other major users such as steel mills and manufacturing plants, according to the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin, a nonprofit advocate for public utility customers.
Moreover, when phase one is completed by the end of 2026, the $3.3 billion facility will rank in size among the top five data centers that Microsoft operates, with the other four largest in Washington, Virginia, Arizona, and Georgia. The company has more than 300 data centers worldwide.
Data centers house thousands of computers, in one or more buildings, linked to the outside world by fiber optic cables. They enable most everyday online activities, including social media, streaming video, banking, AI-based applications like ChatGPT, and much more.
Microsoft's data center investment in Wisconsin is one of the largest in the world, according to the company.
“We are following through on the promises we’ve made to Wisconsin – to invest, build, create jobs, and support broader innovation and worker training, especially for the state’s manufacturing sector," said Microsoft President Brad Smith in an email to the Journal Sentinel.
"We appreciate that this growth also requires a lot of electricity, and we’re committed to paying our own way to add more electricity to the grid, with a priority on carbon-free energy," Smith said.
Microsoft's pledge to spend billions on the Mount Pleasant data center spelled a comeback story for a business park where tech giant Foxconn had once said it would create 13,000 jobs but fell far short of that goal.
Last May, President Joe Biden joined Microsoft President Brad Smith and Gov. Tony Evers at Gateway Technical College to announce an expansion of the data center and Microsoft’s plans to add about 2,000 permanent jobs over time.
Where will this additional electricity come from?
When phase one of the Mount Pleasant project is complete, it will require the equivalent of approximately 450 megawatts of electric utility capacity, according to Microsoft.
Comparing data center and residential electricity usage requires rough calculations, but energy experts say 450 megawatts could meet the needs of more than 300,000 homes.
"It is not unusual to see new data centers being built with capacities from 100 to 1000 megawatts—roughly equivalent to the load from 80,000 to 800,000 homes," the Electric Power Research Institute, an independent nonprofit in Palo Alto, Calif., said in an email to the Journal Sentinel.
Microsoft says it's working with We Energies to bring to the power grid new sources of electricity equal to the amount the Mount Pleasant data center will use without putting a burden on other rate payers.
"We are committed to ensuring that the electricity needs and costs for our Mount Pleasant data center don't lead to an increase in the price of electricity for our neighbors," Microsoft said.
The company said it did not currently have power usage estimates for beyond the first phase of the data center but said its goal is to develop solar and other clean energy sources as quickly as possible.
"This is critical to support our climate sustainability goals because it is not currently possible to deliver to Mount Pleasant all the electricity we need directly from carbon-free sources," Microsoft said.
As one solution, the company says it's partnering with Minnesota-based National Grid Renewables to build a solar plant in Portage that's expected to produce the equivalent power for more than 3 million homes, although solar typically produces less energy than a conventional power plant because its fuel source is intermittent.
This could be one step forward, two steps backward
We Energies says it's investing more than $9 billion in renewable energy by 2029 including new solar, wind and battery storage projects.
"We will more than quadruple our carbon-free energy in the next five years," the company said in an email to the Journal Sentinel.
The Paris Solar Park, in the town of Paris in Kenosha County, officially went into service in December.
Nearly 500,000 solar panels in the park are capable of providing enough energy to power about 60,000 homes.
The panels move and track the sun throughout the day, maximizing power generation. The panels also capture solar energy on both sides, an especially useful feature in winter when sun reflects off the snow and onto the panels.
The solar park will have 110 megawatts of battery storage. That portion of the project is expected to be in service this year, according to We Energies, the majority owner of the project.
The utility has also sought permission from the state Public Service Commission to build gas-fired power plants for the area which includes Mount Pleasant and has seen strong industrial growth.
"Our proposed natural gas generating facilities are an important step to ensure reliability for all of our customers during the transition to a cleaner energy future in Wisconsin," We Energies said.
"Now more than ever, it is critical for us to have quick-start gas plants available and running in our state to support economic growth and reliability when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine," the utility said.
Environmental groups say climate change is going to worsen while utilities continue to rely on carbon-based fuels like natural gas, which presents little or no improvement over coal when it comes to climate impacts.
"We are facing a critical moment of change in Wisconsin. We all know that our state must rapidly move away from burning expensive, harmful coal and methane gas and transition to safer clean energy sources like wind and solar," said Ciaran Gallagher, energy and air manager for the nonprofit Clean Wisconsin.
The transition is underway, according to Gallagher.
"But at the same time, we have a huge new energy user (Microsoft) setting up shop here, and it appears that more large AI data centers are poised to follow. We must demand that when companies like Microsoft come to Wisconsin, they are good neighbors, bringing benefits to our communities without derailing our state’s clean energy transition and contributing to air pollution," she said.
Environmental groups say new gas plants could remain part of the power grid for years, causing air pollution and health problems in communities already affected by coal power plants.
"This is the moment where we need to figure out these issues, because there is no question the decisions that are made around this data center will have long term impacts in our state," Gallagher said.
"We Energies is attempting to rush billions of dollars in new gas plants and pipelines through the approval process, but the public deserves more time, real transparency, and a chance to understand the impacts of what’s happening and weigh in on solutions," she added.
Pairing battery storage with solar and wind could go a long way toward meeting Microsoft's climate goals, according to Clean Wisconsin.
"Solar is great, but we know that on its own, it will be unable to serve Microsoft's nighttime demand," Gallagher said.
Even as new solar and wind projects come online, major investments in gas plants would delay the transition to clean energy, according to the nonprofit RENEW Wisconsin.
That strategy is like "one step forward and two steps backwards," said Sam Dunaiski executive director of RENEW Wisconsin.
"We are aware that the sun does not shine all the time, and the wind does not blow all the time. But as these technologies improve, and as we add more battery storage, we are going to be able to transition to the clean energy economy that we want," Dunaiski said.
Natural gas plants aren't a good stopgap measure to meet clean-energy goals, according to Sierra Club Wisconsin.
"We Energies has been looking for any excuse to double down on false solutions like methane gas, including blaming the energy demand projected from data centers," said Cassie Steiner, Sierra Club Wisconsin's senior campaign coordinator.
Nuclear power could be part of the solution
Data centers are among the world's fastest growing industries, largely driven by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) that allows computers to perform tasks typically requiring human intelligence.
AI is typically much more energy intensive than data retrieval and communications applications which drove data center growth in previous years.
"At 2.9 watt-hours per ChatGPT request, AI queries are estimated to require 10 times the electricity of traditional Google queries," the Electric Power Research Institute says.
Emerging computation-intensive capabilities such as image, audio, and video generation have no precedent, according to EPRI.
Some technology companies have turned to nuclear power as an option to meet their data-center energy needs.
Last fall, Microsoft announced a 20-year power purchasing agreement in which one of the reactors at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant would be brought back online to serve data center power needs.
Three Mile Island, located near Harrisburg, is best known as the site of the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history. In 1979, a mechanical failure caused the partial meltdown of its Unit 2 reactor, which has remained shut down ever since.
Restoring the Unit 1 reactor at Three Mile Island, which was shut down in 2019, would require approval of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. If granted, the power plant could return to operation in 2028.
Wisconsin has a working nuclear power plant, Point Beach, nine miles north of Two Rivers. Another plant, Kewaunee Power Station, was shut down and decommissioned years ago.
However, Wisconsin could triple its nuclear-powered electric output by adding reactors at the two sites, according to the Badger Institute, a Milwaukee based nonprofit policy research organization which supports free markets and limited government.
AI will drive a sharp increase in electric needs
By 2030, AI is poised to drive a 160% increase in data-center power demand, according to Goldman Sachs, an investment banking and financial services firm.
It's significant that 80% of the national data center load is currently concentrated in 15 states, and that in 2023, data centers comprised an estimated 25% of Virginia's electric usage, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.
Data centers have become one of the top economic priorities in Wisconsin.
Since last May, the Town of Port Washington, in Ozaukee County, has been eager for information about a potential data center. Now, a development company called Cloverleaf Infrastructure says it’s pursuing plans for a center on about 2,000 acres within the town that may soon be annexed by the City of Port Washington.
Anywhere the centers are built, it's going to be a balancing act between benefits and concerns.
"The devil's always in the details," said Tom Content, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin.
"It underscores the importance of having a commitment to transparency and accountability," Content said.
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