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The American Transmission Company (ATC) refiled an application on Monday for a sweeping series of grid upgrades in eastern Wisconsin, restarting the state’s six-month review of a project to plug the new Port Washington data center into the grid.
ATC, the state’s largest transmission utility, initially sought Wisconsin Public Service Commission permission last September, with plans to break ground as early as May 2026. Its initial application outlined a more than $1.3 billion infrastructure package, including a high-voltage transmission line and five new substations across Fond du Lac, Ozaukee, Sheboygan and Washington counties, needed to “reliably serve” the new data center by December 2027.
But the commission sent ATC back to the drawing board last month after the company repeatedly adjusted the project’s design, leaving the public with a hazy picture of the proposal, according to commission staff and ratepayer advocates.
Project’s design keeps changing
ATC has since stressed the urgency of the buildout needed to support the data center boom. The company is part of a coalition of utilities asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to speed up regional transmission projects needed to serve data centers by suspending competitive bidding, arguing that “bureaucratic red tape” presents a national security risk as the U.S. competes with China for “dominance” in the artificial intelligence race.
But the utility’s first application underwent multiple redesigns, including the addition of temporary bypass lines to avoid outages during construction. The PSC must review those changes and allow other parties, namely ratepayer advocates and affected landowners, an opportunity to weigh in.
“I don’t recall any other comparable cases in my experience with as many application material document revisions and ongoing design changes throughout the process,” PSC Environmental Affairs Coordinator Adam Ingwell wrote in testimony filed in July. “The sheer volume of documents and revisions, without adequate explanation, likely makes it more challenging than typical for a member of the public to find specific information about the project.”
ATC, by contrast, cast the revisions as “routine.”
“Every application develops during review,” company attorneys wrote last month. “Changes far larger and later than ATC’s have never cast doubt” on whether an application should move forward, they added, citing a Barron County solar farm the PSC approved last March despite an “eleventh-hour” overhaul that included “relocating an entire substation.”
“There is simply no principled basis on which to treat ATC’s lesser and earlier changes more harshly,” the attorneys wrote.
The three-member commission in August unanimously sided with ATC’s critics, directing ATC to submit a new application to give the public a better opportunity to assess the full package.
“This PSC is not opposed or hostile to data centers, construction, generation, (or) transmission,” PSC Chair Summer Strand said, calling the decision “an unfortunate outcome.” Nevertheless, she added, “this application represents a cautionary tale of when unrealistic and unreasonable speed-to-power expectations collide with a deliberative regulatory process.”
How latest application differs
ATC’s new application departs from the previous version in several ways, including removing a segment of transmission line through Trenton in Washington County and Saukville in Ozaukee County.
“The need for this project has not changed, but the application has,” Jared Winters,
ATC executive vice president and chief assets officer, said in a Monday press release.
The PSC will hold a new round of public comment on the project before determining whether it can move forward. That review will begin once the commission determines the new application is “complete.”
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ATC restarts push for grid upgrades serving Port Washington data center is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
