Sierra Club’s Dirty Truth Report: We Energies Scores 4/100 as Data Center Demand Drives More Gas and Higher Bills

# What the report says Report assessing U.S. utilities on coal retirements, planned gas capacity, and additions of renewable energy. We Energies scored 4 out of 100 — the worst grade it's received since the report began. Nationally, the 76 utilities evaluated averaged 7 out of 100, the lowest aggregate score in the report's history.

# Why We Energies scored so poorly Three specific actions drove We Energies' low score:

• It delayed retirement of the Oak Creek coal plant for the third time.
• It plans to add about 1.2 gigawatts of new gas-fired generation by 2035, a nearly 50% increase over its current gas capacity.

The report links the planned gas expansion to the utility's efforts to attract large AI and cloud data centers to Wisconsin. Those projects create new, concentrated electricity demand that utilities are courting, in part, through supply and reliability promises.

# Rate increase and public response We Energies proposed a 14% increase in utility bills. The proposal faced heavy public pushback: more than 1,800 comments to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, with 91% opposing the rate hike. Among those opposed:

• Roughly 75% cited affordability as a primary concern.
• Nearly 42% called for reductions to We Energies' profits and cuts to CEO and board compensation.

# Sierra Club statements Cassie Steiner, Sierra Club Senior Campaign Coordinator, said the public opposition and the report show We Energies has prioritized executive and shareholder profits over customers, with repeated rate increases and little regulatory intervention to protect residents.

Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender framed the report as evidence of utilities' failure to plan phase-outs of fossil infrastructure and transition to clean energy. She warned that continued fossil-fuel reliance drives higher bills, air and water pollution, and worsened climate-related impacts as data center demand grows.

# Broader context and implications The Dirty Truth methodology focuses on three measurable elements: coal retirements, planned gas capacity, and renewable additions. Despite renewable energy being the cheapest generation option, the report finds utilities — including We Energies — are expanding expensive fossil infrastructure.

Those choices affect customers two ways: higher operating and fuel costs can translate into higher bills, and continued fossil generation keeps pollution and health impacts at elevated levels. The report signals regulatory and public scrutiny will increasingly target utility decisions that enable large commercial loads without clear protections for residential ratepayers.

# What's next

For Wisconsin ratepayers and regulators, the immediate items to watch are the Public Service Commission's decisions on the rate increase and on any approvals tied to new generation or supply arrangements meant to serve data centers.