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Showing posts with label Mount Pleasant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mount Pleasant. Show all posts
Thursday, July 30, 2026
Friday, July 24, 2026
Will residential customers be forced to pay for data center power lines?
From JSOnline:
Francesca Pica
Francesca Pica
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
As more Wisconsin utilities look to hold hyperscale data centers financially responsible for new power plants, regulators are still left to decide a key question: who's paying for the power lines?
On July 16, American Transmission Co. filed plans to shield residents from costs related to Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar data center campus on the former Foxconn site in Mount Pleasant. The power line company serves more than five million customers in eastern Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and parts of Minnesota and Illinois.
It’s the first in a string of plans to directly assign data center-related transmission costs to the tech companies that own them, according to ATC. These include Vantage Data Centers’ $15 billion project in Port Washington and a data center in Beaver Dam owned by Facebook parent Meta.
ATC is planning more than $2 billion in new high-voltage power lines, substations and facility upgrades to help serve large data centers – an unprecedented build-out for the company. ATC charges these costs to utilities like We Energies, who send them to their customers through energy bills.
We Energies will pay the total cost of transmission capacity a data center requests “even in the event the end-use data center customer fails to materialize or take 100% of the requested service,” according to the proposal. Microsoft must then pay the utility back in full.
“It’s a little bit like a builder. You say, ‘I want a four-bedroom house,’ and it's like, ‘well, I'm only going to use three of them for a while and I don’t want to pay for one quarter,’” said Ellen Nowak, ATC vice president of regulatory and government affairs.
“You asked us to build a four-bedroom house – you’re getting a four-bedroom house and you’re going to pay for the whole house.”
A Microsoft spokesperson told the Journal Sentinel the tech company “remains committed to paying the costs our data center operations require while protecting other ratepayers.”
Regulators previously approved separate electric rate for data centers
In April, the state Public Service Commission modified and approved a separate electric rate for data centers in We Energies’ service area, including the Mount Pleasant project. It’s intended to ensure data centers pay for billions of dollars in new infrastructure needed to serve them.
But unlike new power plants, transmission projects built by ATC are not covered by the data center rate. Commissioners warned that if these costs are not accounted for, they could end up on residents’ energy bills.
We Energies said in April it was working with ATC on a plan to address transmission costs.
Consumer advocates have warned about the cost of the transmission lines throughout the process. They include the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin, which represents residents in utility cases.
“Without the large and loud engagement on this topic, I doubt we would have seen the movement we have from the applicant and ATC to evaluate creative solutions to this issue,” Commissioner Marcus Hawkins said in April.
CUB executive director Tom Content said the group will review ATC’s proposal “with an eye toward shielding data center-linked costs from the power bills paid by the residential and small business customers we represent.”
“This proposal goes to the heart of a key issue for CUB, ensuring customers aren’t left holding the bag for billions of costs for new power lines ATC has asked to build to serve them,” Content said. “We had expressed concern in the data center tariff case about how transmission costs were to be allocated and the PSC responded by revamping the original We Energies proposal.”
More data center plans coming, power line company says
ATC says plans for the Port Washington and Beaver Dam data centers will be filed separately.
Meanwhile, the Public Service Commission is ordering retail utilities create a uniform electric rate for all their large data center customers. Commissioners say this will increase transparency and ensure fairness in future projects.
But ATC says agreements for individual projects are in line with its past filings as well as data center plans enacted by transmission owners in other states. The rules for wholesalers like ATC are different, the company added.
“That’s not atypical for us,” Nowak said. “Our agreements are going to be very similar among all of our customers. It's just going to be different inputs, and we have to treat all of our customers similarly and equally.”
In March, Meta, Oracle, Microsoft and other tech giants signed a White House agreement promising to cover all costs associated with their data center build-outs. The Trump administration expanded the nonbinding pledge in July as it seeks to promote AI development.
Meanwhile, data centers are facing growing public backlash. Marquette University Law School's July poll found that three quarters of Wisconsin voters viewed data centers unfavorably, up from 55% in October.
CUB will be watching for future agreements for the other data center campuses, Content said.
“It's critical to ensure data center developers are paying their full share for the costs needed to serve them, including ‘network upgrades’ that tech companies committed to funding when they signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge this spring at the White House,” he said.
Cost recovery rules add urgency
Retail utilities like We Energies cannot pass along the cost of a new power plant until it comes online, years after initial approval. But a regulatory exception allows ATC to charge customers for projects that are still under construction.
The new transmission projects for Microsoft’s campus have already been approved by state regulators, totaling $625 million. Two more substations initially built for Foxconn will serve the project and be covered by ATC’s July 16 plan.
A $1.5 billion high-voltage power line for the Port Washington data center is also pending commission approval.
The cost recovery rule means customer protections must be put in place soon, before new projects make their way into electric rates, consumer advocates warn.
We Energies earmarked $620 million in transmission charges for data centers in 2027 and 2028, according to its energy rate plan. State regulators will likely vote on approval of the plan by the end of 2026.
Both the state Public Service Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must sign off on ATC's plan. It has been sent to the regional grid operator for review, the company says. It’s expected to come before federal regulators by early August.
Once it’s filed, the federal agency will have 60 days to respond.
Francesca Pica can be reached at fpica@usatodayco.com.
Thursday, July 23, 2026
Friday, July 17, 2026
Tuesday, July 14, 2026
Saturday, July 4, 2026
Residents sue Microsoft over alleged noise emissions from Mt. Pleasant data center
From The Journal Times.com:
Holly Gilvary
Holly Gilvary
Erin Brockovich is launching a map to track AI data centers, investigating their environmental and community impact.
MOUNT PLEASANT — Three people living near Microsoft's newly completed data center in Mount Pleasant are suing the tech giant over alleged excessive noise emissions coming from the facility at 4800 90th St.
Liddle Sheets P.C., a law firm based in Detroit, and Milwaukee-based Hansen Reynolds LLC have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the residents claiming the center is creating a nuisance by emitting excessive noise throughout the neighboring residential area, according to news release issued Thursday by the firms.
Plaintiffs Garrett Ostergaard, David Wade and Joy Wade alleged that about 1,000 residential properties within about one-and-a-half miles of the data center are impacted by noise from the facility, which they describe as a hum.
According to the release, Ostergaard said he changed to his shift at work because of sleeplessness caused by the alleged noise from the data center. David and Joy Wade said they cannot enjoy their home or their yard as frequently as they would like because of the noise.
The data center's reported noise pollution comes from its diesel generators and HVAC systems, including chillers, cooling towers, air-handling units and condenser fans, according to the complaint.
A Microsoft spokesperson on Thursday said the company is aware of the lawsuit, adding that Microsoft is "committed to being a good neighbor in the communities where we build, own, and operate our datacenters."
Mount Pleasant Communications Director Sean Ryan said the village has received no formal complaints related to Microsoft's properties "since the company completed the adjustments that were announced in mid-April to resolve a humming sound from the data center."
"Village officials stand ready to respond if people do reach out to us, and will continue to ensure Microsoft is a good corporate citizen and a good neighbor," Ryan said Thursday.
From: https://journaltimes.com/news/local/article_c693aad1-c2fe-45c5-9e84-a97f715f34ad.html#tracking-source=home-top-story
Friday, July 3, 2026
Wednesday, July 1, 2026
Friday, June 26, 2026
Wednesday, June 24, 2026
Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Microsoft completes construction on first Racine County data center
From JSOnline:
Ricardo Torres
Ricardo Torres
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Data center is first of several planned
Microsoft Corp. has completed construction of its first data center in Mount Pleasant – with several more to come.
The company said the facility, which it calls Fairwater, is "fully operational."
"Wisconsin is now home to the world's most powerful supercomputer," Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a June 23 statement.
“This campus will help power the next generation of AI innovation globally and provide long-term economic opportunity locally through hundreds of highly skilled jobs and continued investment in the region," Smith said.
Microsoft has committed more than $7.3 billion to building multiple data centers in Mount Pleasant. The company has a second data center under construction to be completed in 2028.
The company has roughly 375 people working at the data center and plans to have roughly 800 workers on the campus once the second data center is completed.
Village President Dave DeGroot called the completion of the first data center a "historic milestone" for Mount Pleasant and Racine County.
"Microsoft's decision to invest here elevates our community into a destination for innovation and advancement," DeGroot said, in a statement.
"As this campus continues to grow, it will create lasting opportunities for residents, strengthen our regional economy and help position Wisconsin for long-term success," he said.
The data center puts Microsoft at the top of largest taxpayers in Mount Pleasant and Racine County. The company's facilities in Mount Pleasant are worth about $1.224 billion, according to assessment data, which means its annual tax bill is $19.75 million.
Microsoft has been approved to build up to 15 more data centers in Mount Pleasant during the next 10 years. Those centers are being built with union workers.
""I'm very proud of the work our members have done to build this facility," Michael Ervin, organizing director of Operating Engineers Local 139 said, in a statement. "Since day one, they have helped build it safely, professionally and with pride in their craft."
"This isn't an ordinary construction project," Ervin said. "Our members are getting the chance to work on some of the most advanced infrastructure, and those skills and experiences will stay with them throughout their careers.”
The Microsoft development is taking place within a tax incremental financing district. The district uses property tax revenue from the development to pay for roads, sewers, and other public infrastructure improvements.
Microsoft completes construction on first Mount Pleasant data center
From The Journal Times.com:
Holly Gilvary
Holly Gilvary
MOUNT PLEASANT — After two years, construction of Microsoft's first data center in Mount Pleasant is complete.
Microsoft said Tuesday that the facility is fully operational. The plan for the facility was first announced in May 2024.
Almost 10,000 construction crew members worked on the facility and there are currently almost 550 full-time employees on-site. Microsoft said the company and its contractors are actively hiring and expect this number will continue to grow.
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said Wisconsin is now home to the "world's most powerful supercomputer."
"This campus will help power the next generation of AI innovation globally and provide long-term economic opportunity locally through hundreds of highly skilled jobs and continued investment in the region," Smith said in a news release.
Mount Pleasant Village President David DeGroot called the facility's completion "a historic milestone for Mount Pleasant and all of Racine County as we become home to one of the most advanced technology campuses in the world."
"Microsoft's decision to invest here elevates our community into a destination for innovation and advancement," DeGroot said in the release. "As this campus continues to grow, it will create lasting opportunities for residents, strengthen our regional economy and help position Wisconsin for long-term success."
Microsoft estimates the company will have spent $4.7 billion between 2024-28 locally on hyperscale construction in Wisconsin. It has directly purchased from 29 businesses across 11 Wisconsin counties, rippling across many more local companies through supplier networks, subcontracting, logistics and related services needs, according to Microsoft.
Direct purchases include construction suppliers in Racine County, contractors and steel fabricators in Outagamie and Marathon counties, electrical equipment manufacturers in Rock and Columbia counties, and machinery manufacturers in La Crosse County.
Construction of Microsoft's second facility in Mount Pleasant, which is immediately adjacent to the first, is ongoing. Current work includes foundation installation, steel erection and underground utility placement. This facility is scheduled to be completed in 2028.
When the second facility is fully operational, Microsoft expects the number of full-time employees in Mount Pleasant will grow to about 800.
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
Mount Pleasant man sentenced in child sexual abuse case
From The Journal Times.com:
Milana Doné
Milana Doné
RACINE — A 39-year-old Mount Pleasant man was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison in connection to child sexual abuse allegations.
Matthew Wefler had been charged with one count of repeated sexual assault of the same child, one count of incest with a child, seven counts of child sexual exploitation and three counts of causing a child under 13 to view/listen to sexual activity.
At Friday's hearing, Wefler pleaded guilty to repeated sexual assault of the same child, incest with a child and two of the child sexual exploitation counts.supervisi
The remaining counts were dismissed but read in to the court record.
He originally entered a not guilty plea to all counts last November.
Wefler also was ordered to serve 10 years of extended supervision.
According to a criminal complaint, the FBI notified the Racine County Sheriff’s Office on June 24, 2025, about an investigation regarding the distribution of child sexual abuse material and a child sexual assault involving Wefler.
The FBI reportedly found “hundreds of pages” of chat messages in which Wefler and a man in Texas exchanged and discussed sexual content involving young children and Wefler’s dog.
Recent stories by Racine Journal Times reporter Milana Doné
Saturday, May 23, 2026
Events planned throughout Racine County over Memorial Day weekend
From The Journal Times.com:
Milana Doné
Milana Doné
RACINE — Racine County residents have a handful options available to honor service members this Memorial Day weekend.
Racine
The Racine Memorial Day Parade steps off at 10 a.m. Monday on Washington Avenue at West Boulevard, according to Racine Area Veterans Inc.. The parade moves north along West Boulevard to Osborne Road, and concludes at Graceland Cemetery with a remembrance ceremony at 11 a.m.
West Boulevard between Washington Avenue and Osborne Boulevard will be closed from about 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m..
Over the weekend, the Racine Zoo, at 2131 N. Main Street, will feature extended summer hours. From May 23-25, the zoo will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Mount Pleasant
West Lawn Memorial Park’s Memorial Day Honor Service is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Monday at 9000 Washington Avenue in Racine.
The ceremony includes a flag display from a South Shore Fire Department ladder truck, a portrayal of George Washington by a historical reenactor and patriotic music performed by the Racine Lutheran High School Band.
Additionally, patrons can expect a reading of the names of veterans interred at West Lawn since last Memorial Day. It will be followed by a dove release and the placement of a wreath at the veterans’ memorial.
Wind Lake
Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8343 will host its Memorial Day ceremony from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
It will feature a motorcycle parade led by the Gary Wetzel Riders, the motorcycle club of Wisconsin Medal of Honor recipient. The parade will leave from The Penny Bar at 6959 South Loomis Road at 11 a.m. Riders will travel around Wind Lake to the VFW memorial grounds next to B-Lazy Bar and Grill at 7922 South Loomis Road.
The ceremony also will include reading the names of veterans, live music by the Smooth Blues Band, games, a firework show, raffles and the Boy Scout food booth.
Union Grove
The fifth annual Memorial Day Parade to honor the residents of Wisconsin Veterans Home Union Grove will be held Monday.
Parade participants will meet between 1:30 and 2:15 p.m. in the parking lot of the Racine County Fairgrounds and can use the Highway 45 Fairgrounds entrance.
The vehicles will leave the fairgrounds at about 2:30 p.m. and travel on Highway 11 and Highway C to the grounds of Southern Wisconsin Center and the Wisconsin Veterans Home.
They will then pass through the adjacent Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery and take a final pass by the Wisconsin Veterans Home.
The parade will include vehicles from the Kansasville Fire Department and Union Grove-Yorkville Fire Department.
More information can be found by contacting committee member David Bart at 847-691-3901 or Ellen Jante at 262-492-2439.
Burlington area
The Rochester Memorial Parade is one of the longest-running traditions in the state.
It will line up at 1 p.m. Monday at the Rochester Fire Department at 31020 Academy Road in Burlington. The parade steps off at 1:30 p.m. and will end at Pioneer Park. The post-parade ceremony features taps, the lowering of a wreath and a flag-folding ceremony.
Saturday, May 16, 2026
How many data centers are there in Wisconsin? It depends how you count
From JSOnline:
Blaise Mesa
Blaise Mesa
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Wisconsin is building massive data centers. But the group DC Byte says it has 21 total.
Data centers are appearing across the country as demand for artificial intelligence increases.
In Wisconsin, a Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant is nearing completion and already has 375 full-time employees, according to a company executive. A second Microsoft data center is under construction, with even more planned for the future, the Journal Sentinel previously reported.
In September 2025, Gov. Tony Evers applauded the company's investment by highlighting the jobs being created in the state.
“This project is creating good, family-sustaining union jobs across the entire region from carpenters, plumbers and electricians,” he said.
There are other data centers in Wisconsin too, including the Cogent, Vaultas Milwaukee and Data Holdings Milwaukee facilities.
What is the purpose of data centers?
The data center boom due in part to the rise of artificial intelligence, but the specific purpose of each data center can vary by location, Stafford said. They are also used for:
- Cloud computing and storage
- Streaming
- E-commerce
- Telecoms However, a University of Virginia report and a World Resources Institute report both put Wisconsin's total at about 50, as the Journal Sentinel previously reported.
There are 53 data centers listed for Wisconsin on datacentermap.com, a website that maps data centers across the country. That count includes 19 data centers in the Milwaukee area.
- IT infrastructure
- Telecoms
- Disaster backup
How many data centers are there in Wisconsin?
There are a few different totals, depending on how the facilities are counted.
DC Byte, a firm that tracks data center development, puts the count for Wisconsin at 21, including 12 data centers that haven't yet gone live.
However, a University of Virginia report and a World Resources Institute report both put Wisconsin's total at about 50, as the Journal Sentinel previously reported.
There are 53 data centers listed for Wisconsin on datacentermap.com, a website that maps data centers across the country. That count includes 19 data centers in the Milwaukee area.
Rob Stafford, of DC Byte, said some facilities may have multiple data centers in one location, and some counts include every individual data center. But DC Byte does not, Stafford said.
These are the DC Byte counts for Wisconsin's neighbors:
- Illinois – 91 data centers (51 not yet live)
- Minnesota – 36 data centers (14 not yet live)
- Michigan – 25 data centers (14 not yet live)
The World Resources Institute report lists these states as having the country's most data centers:
- Virginia - 566 data centers
- Texas - 391 data centers
- California - 287 data centers
- Illinois and Georgia - 195 data centers
- Ohio - 194 data centers
Stafford explained that it can be difficult to compare the size of different data centers because energy use can be hard to quantify, so DC Byte doesn't track it "in any comprehensive way." DC Byte uses proprietary information and talks to people living near data centers to compile its data, he said.
What do data centers do to the environment?
Some large data centers can as much as five million gallons of water a day, the same amount used by a town of 50,000 people, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. Researchers who studied the affects of data centers on air quality say there could be as many as 1,300 premature deaths in the United States by 2030 due to air pollution from power plants supplying electricity to data centers,
At least a few Wisconsin communities have resisted data centers due to concerns about water use and electricity costs.
From: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/wisconsin/2026/05/13/how-many-data-centers-are-there-in-wisconsin-see-the-numbers/89996135007/
Foxconn North American facilities hacked. Impact on Wisconsin unknown
From JSOnline:
Ricardo Torres
Ricardo Torres
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Foxconn Technology Group is recovering from recent a ransomware attack which happened around May 12.
In a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the company said:
"Some of Foxconn's factories in North America suffered a cyberattack. The cybersecurity team immediately activated the response mechanism and implemented multiple operational measures to ensure the continuity of production and delivery. The affected factories are currently resuming normal production."
It's unclear which facilities were targeted and what the total impact of the attack had on the company. Reports have pointed to an organization called "Nitrogen Group" which allegedly committed the act.
Foxconn's North American headquarters is located in 611 East Wisconsin Avenue but it's main facilities in the state are in Mount Pleasant.
In 2017, the company originally planned to build a massive advanced manufacturing campus with $10 billion of capital investment and 13,000 employees statewide. However Foxconn drastically changed course with its operations in Wisconsin and, as of 2025, had more than 1,300 workers in the state.
Foxconn sold most of its land in Mount Pleasant to Microsoft which is in the process of building a massive data center campus. Microsoft is in the final stages of finishing its first data center and already has more than 375 workers at the facility.
Friday, May 15, 2026
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
What is Fairwater? The name of Microsoft's AI data center network
From JSOnline:
Ricardo Torres
Ricardo Torres
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Data center critics might see irony in Fairwater name
"Fairwater" is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as a boat device, a streamlined bridge, and a submarine's conning tower.
It's also the name of Microsoft Corp.'s artificial intelligence data center network – which some data center critics might find ironic.
When Microsoft announced it was building a second southeastern Wisconsin data center, a small detail went overlooked: its Fairwater name.
"In addition to our Fairwater datacenter in Wisconsin, we also have multiple identical Fairwater datacenters under construction in other locations across the US," Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Cloud and AI for Microsoft, said in September.
The second Fairwater data center is in Atlanta. It was announced in November, and Microsoft stated in a blog post the two data centers are connected.
"This enables Fairwater sites located in different states to work together as an AI superfactory to train new generations of AI models far more quickly, accomplishing jobs in just weeks instead of several months," the post reads.
As for why the name "Fairwater"?
Microsoft says it was an internal code name the company decided to make public.
Water usage has been a key focus of data center critics. Microsoft has tried to calm anxiety around that issue.
"Lake Michigan has nothing to fear from our data center," Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith said during a September announcement of the second Mount Pleasant data center.
"We build data centers in the desert, that's because we've figured out how to run them without using a lot of water," Smith said, adding the company uses a closed-loop cooling system.
Closed-loop systems reuse most of that water, but they still need occasional flushing and refills.
The Fairwater data center is expected to use 2.8 million gallons of Lake Michigan water in 2026.
But that's more of a floor than a ceiling. Microsoft is planning to build 15 more data centers in Mount Pleasant during the next decade or longer.
Microsoft could use up to 8.44 million gallons of water annually with that expansion, according to the City of Racine, which provides water to the development site. Roughly 6 million gallons are to be returned to Racine.
But even those projections might fall short of reality.
Microsoft's internal forecasts expects its annual water usage for roughly 100 data center complexes world wide to be around 28 billion liters in 2030, according to the New York Times.
In a comment given to the Times, Microsoft said it now expects to use about 18 billion liters of water by 2030. That's roughly 4.8 billion gallons.
Environmental advocate Milwaukee Riverkeeper has pushed for more transparency and action on data center water issues.
"This conversation shouldn’t be about branding – it should center on impact, accountability, and the long-term stewardship of our local waters," said Jennifer Bolger Breceda, executive director of Milwaukee Riverkeeper.
"Data centers place significant demand on water resources, and in a region defined by the Great Lakes, that should require careful consideration and thoughtful implementation," Breceda told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
"When an out-of-state corporation proposes a project of this magnitude, there must be full transparency around water use, clear and enforceable safeguards, and a rigorous review process to ensure our people and waters are protected.
"We also need to take an honest look at the tradeoffs, including whether the long-term community benefits truly match the scale of resource use," Breceda said.
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