Data centers 101 | An inside look at a Wisconsin data center

Data centers are quietly reshaping Wisconsin’s energy future, and right now they are doing it in a way that threatens higher bills, more pollution, and less accountability. As tech companies race to build massive new facilities across the state, the electricity needed to power them is exploding at an unprecedented scale.

What does a data center actually look like inside? Come along for a walkthrough as Anton Kapela takes us inside a small facility in Madison, Wisconsin. He shows how even a relatively modest center requires enormous, round-the-clock energy, and how the much larger facilities now proposed for Wisconsin could consume as much power as entire cities.

That surge in demand has real consequences. Investor-owned utilities like WE Energies are using data center growth as justification to raise rates and build new fossil fuel infrastructure that guarantees them the highest returns, even as Wisconsin families struggle with already sky-high utility bills.

Wisconsin has a clear choice. We can allow utilities and tech giants to dictate our energy future, leading to decades of pollution and higher costs, or we can demand better. By requiring tech companies and utilities to invest in large-scale renewable energy and critical transmission upgrades, we can meet growing demand without sacrificing affordability, reliability, or our climate goals.