Wind turbines are back in action
in Wisconsin.
The State Public Service Commission
has approved the first big wind
farm since 2011.
The Badger Hollow Wind Project with
19 turbines will compliment
the state's largest solar project
by the same name in Iowa County.
The PSC at the same time approved
a solar project in Whitewater.
Meanwhile, the federal government
cut $7.5 billion
from green energy projects
in several states, not including
Wisconsin, just this week.
Against that backdrop, renewable
energy advocates consider the latest
approvals in Wisconsin a major
win.
Chelsea Chandler with Clean
Wisconsin joins us with more.
And thanks very much for being here.
Thanks for having me.
So are these latest projects kind
of outside the budget axis at
the federal level?
There's an approval process that
happens for these projects within
Wisconsin, the projects over 100
megawatts. These large projects get
approved by the Public Service
Commission. There's a really robust
process that happens there.
There is environmental review.
There are technical hearings
and public testimony, lots
of opportunities for comment.
And so all that is happening within
Wisconsin.
A lot of these projects are on
private land.
It's just contracts with individual
land owners.
There are some things that the
federal government is trying to
do to hamper renewable
energy development certainly,
but obviously these projects are
still moving forward in Wisconsin.
So how big of a win, we described
it as a win. But how big a win are
these PSC approvals for
clean energy in Wisconsin?
Well, it's really notable that
Badger Hollow is the first wind
project to be approved in over
14 years.
That's really significant.
We know that we need a lot more
wind energy, solar energy to
meet our energy needs and to do so
in a clean way.
Solar and wind are the cheapest
forms of electricity, so it's
a really great wind
for people's pocketbooks for
our electricity bills.
And these also really represent
huge opportunities for rural
communities in terms of
the economics and the money
that is flowing into the host
communities from the farmers who
sign leases to host these where they
get long-term stable
high income, which
is helping them kind of weather
these ups and downs with tariff wars
and everything like that and
commodity crops right now.
And it's a big one for communities
too who get annual
payments for hosting these projects.
And so. They can use that money
to do things like fix roads or
lower taxes or just whatever
the local leaders team
is the highest and best use.
So it's good.
So the 19 turbines at
the Badger Hollow Project approved,
how much energy does that produce?
It's enough to power tens of
thousands of Wisconsin homes.
Wind energy is very
efficient.
Just one spin of a wind turbine
can power,
or sorry, one minute of wind turbine
spinning can power a Wisconsin home
for an entire day.
So we're generating huge amounts of
energy from those turbines.
How does wind work
with solar?
Is that a complementary kind of mix?
Very much so, yeah.
So solar obviously is getting energy
from the sun, so we need sunlight.
It does not work at night.
The wind is blowing during the day
and at night, so they work very well
together.
A lot of these projects, not these
ones that were recently approved,
but increasingly we're seeing
projects be proposed
along with storage, like batteries,
and so that can also help store when
there's a lot of wind or a
really sunny day, store that energy
away for some of those times where
we've got less of those resources.
They work well seasonally
together as well.
So there's less sun in the winter,
although the panels themselves are
very efficient in cold temperatures.
But wind is actually more productive
in the winter too, because the
colder air is denser and it helps
kind of generate more electricity.
So they really do pair well
together.
So why has it taken so long
to have a
wind project approved?
There have been wind projects
approved just not at this scale.
So other projects that are less
than 100 megawatts get approved at
the county level.
And so we have seen some of those
wind projects come through in recent
years. But this is the first one
that's over 100 megawatts,
a much bigger project to be approved
at the Public Service Commission.
We just did an interview about the
amount of energy new data centers
are going to require.
How will this portfolio of
clean energy help boost that
capacity?
You know, any additional electricity
that's coming online is going to be
helpful, but these data centers
are really representing it.
Massive, massive energy demand.
It's kind of hard to wrap our minds
around them, frankly.
Clean Wisconsin just did an analysis
that showed that just for
a couple of data centers that did
report their energy use,
they would use as much energy,
or more energy than all of
the homes in Wisconsin combined.
So it's really staggering.
Haven't been seeing renewables
powering these data centers yet.
What we're seeing is more gas
plants being proposed.
That's what happened when WeEnergy's
territory, a couple of gas plants,
were approved to support
the Microsoft data center.
We're seeing a renewed interest in
nuclear.
I will say there's a misalignment in
the timeline of when we
have this energy demand from
the data centers and how long it
takes to build those projects.
Solar and wind are actually the
fastest. They take maybe one or two
years to build. Gas is more like
five and nuclear, you're looking at
a decade or more.
So it's a really tough proposition,
but every bit counts.
So meanwhile,
The build out of electric
vehicle charging stations in
Wisconsin seems to be back on
track after funding was pulled and
then a lawsuit restored it.
When the project is complete, how
covered will the state of Wisconsin
be for people wanting to charge
their EVs?
Yeah, our state's Department of
Transportation did an excellent job
of planning and making sure that we
have good coverage. They looked at
all the corridors where there were
gaps, and so when we fully
implement all of this funding
and get these charging stations
built, Wisconsinites will be able to
travel around the state with
confidence knowing that there was
going to be a charging station on
their way when they need to use it.
All right, well we will watch those
going up.
Chelsea Chandler, Clean Wisconsin,
thanks very much. Thank you.