Yeah, the good news is we're
not doing it.
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 complement
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.
Thanks very much for being here.
Thanks for having me.
So are these latest projects kind
of outside the budget axes 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
happen there. There's environmental
review, there's technical
hearings and public
testimony, lots of opportunities for
comment. And so all that is
happening within Wisconsin,
you know, a lot of these projects
are on private land.
You know, it's just contracts with
individual landowners.
And so.
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
win 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 this 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 win 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 and team
is the highest and best use.
So it's.
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.
You know, 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?
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,
you know, really sunny days 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?
Any additional electricity
that's coming online is going to be
helpful, but these data centers
are really representing a
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. In nuclear, you're looking at
a decade or more.
So it's a really tough proposition,
but every bit counts.
Meanwhile, the buildout 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?
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.
We will watch those going up.
Chelsea Chandler, Clean Wisconsin,
thanks very much.