A panel at this week’s Customers First Coalition 2025 Power Breakfast in Madison discussed the energy challenges and opportunities associated with more data centers coming online across Wisconsin and the U.S. Speakers noted the rising demand impact of new data centers being built nationwide.
Former state PSC Commissioner Tyler Huebner said these projects bring “a lot of job creation, a lot of economic benefit, tax base benefit” for the communities in which they are located. However those benefits are accompanied by a substantial need for energy — in some cases a “hyperscale” datacenter is comparable to the addition of an entire city to the grid.
Huebner said geothermal energy and small modular reactors (SMRs) represent exciting prospects for this space. SMRs can be deployed to locations with high demand after being built in a factory elsewhere and provide an alternative to more expensive traditional nuclear plants.
Meanwhile, data center developers like Microsoft and Cloverleaf are reportedly giving priority to speed to market, reliability and cost for new projects in Wisconsin.
