A smaller increase than the utility sought
We Energies will raise electricity rates by about 7% across 2027 and 2028 under a vote taken Thursday by Wisconsin's Public Service Commission, marking the company's sixth straight increase. The utility projects that a typical household bill will climb by $7 to $8 a month next year and by $6 to $7 more in 2028. We Energies had originally asked for roughly 9% overall, including a 16% jump for residential customers.[S1][S2]
Much of the added revenue is earmarked for renewable generation, natural gas and battery storage, part of a capital spending plan the company says will grow by about $10 billion over five years. We Energies supplies more than a million customers in Wisconsin and in sections of Michigan and Illinois.[S1]
Commissioners question the cumulative burden
During a hearing that ran ten hours, commissioners argued that the utility's rates have risen faster than inflation for three consecutive years and that each increase cannot be justified in isolation. Kristy Nieto, a commissioner, said at the start of the session that the panel had to weigh whether the balance was right when customers face some of the region's highest rates while shareholders earn solid returns.[S1]
The commission reduced the increase on several fronts. It lowered the guaranteed rate of return that shareholders collect on each dollar invested and passed to ratepayers, setting it at 9.5% rather than the 9.9% We Energies requested. That gap is expected to save customers about $60 million over two years. Falling fuel costs at We Energies and other Wisconsin utilities also played a part.[S1]
Who pays for data center power
We Energies had proposed charging ratepayers for a quarter of the cost of new plants built to serve data center customers, offering to offset the expense with wholesale sales of surplus electricity. Commissioners rejected that approach a month later and ordered the construction costs assigned directly to current and future large data center customers.[S1]
A pending deal with Oracle, a partner in the Project Lighthouse campus in Port Washington, could spare other customers roughly $300 million in fuel costs over five years by giving the company a share of output from the Point Beach Nuclear Plant. The commission has not yet approved it. Transmission costs for data centers largely fall outside state jurisdiction and sit with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is weighing a proposal from the American Transmission Company that Microsoft has opposed.[S1]
Overspending and the political backdrop
Commissioners also moved to limit shareholder profit from a Kenosha County solar and battery project that We Energies bought from an independent developer for $433 million in 2022, with the solar farm operating from late 2024 and the battery following within a year. The vote came two days after Wisconsin voters handed Democrats control of the governorship and legislature for 2027, and the commission chair said she wants lawmakers to rewrite the state's utility rules.[S1]
