Rows of data center equipment and server racks inside an industrial facility. Photo: İsmail Enes Ayhan / Unsplash

(The Center Square) – An environmental group has filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission asking for the electrical load projections for a $1 billion artificial intelligence data center in Beaver Dam.

The PSC released electrical load information for a planned 1,300 megawatt data center in Port Washington but denied releasing the data for the Beaver Dam facility after it was requested by the Midwest Environmental Advocates.

“It appears the PSC is unlawfully withholding this information because either Meta or a public utility is claiming the electricity demand for the data center is a trade secret,” MEA Legal Fellow Michael Greif said in a statement. “We call on Alliant Energy, American Transmission Company and Meta to be forthright with the public about their plans. These companies are asking a lot of the public and the public deserves, at least the very least, basic information about the data center’s massive energy needs.”

The Beaver Dam project is planned to require just 100 operational employees once it goes online in 2027 and will receive the benefit of a set of tax breaks from the state including a tax increment district that collects property taxes and gives it back to the company and a sales tax exemption on construction materials, electricity and equipment within the data center, a state exemption that has already far exceeded fiscal expectations by costing the state $70 million in sales tax in the first two years since implementation.

The energy companies have said that data centers will pay for the infrastructure of energy needs but questions remain about whether consumers will see increased costs if energy needs exceed the available energy in the state.

Data centers are expected to lead to the average American’s energy bill increasing 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.

Data centers in Port Washington and Mount Pleasant alone will use more energy than the rest of the consumers in the state.

“This lawsuit is about making sure Wisconsin residents have access to the critical information they need to understand and evaluate the impacts of the fast-growing data center industry,” Greif said. “Keeping the public in the dark about data centers and the amount of water and energy they will use deprives Wisconsinites of the transparency they deserve.”