David Michael Miller
The winds of change are suddenly blowing across Wisconsin, long a state that stood opposed to clean energy. Under Gov. Scott Walker, Wisconsin has been a fiefdom of fossil fuel, as I’ve previously written, and more dependent on coal power than all but nine states.
But that’s about to change, led by top state utilities Alliant Energy of Madison and We Energies in Milwaukee, both of which have recently announced they will eliminate all use of coal power by 2050, reducing their carbon emissions by 80 percent.
Alliant spokesman Scott Reigstad told the media most of Alliant’s changes will involve wind energy. Alliant, which now gets 33 percent of its power from coal, says it will spend more than $2 billion on new renewables, doubling the number of its wind power sites from six to 12 by 2030. This will increase the utility’s use of renewables from the current 16 percent to 33 percent of its energy mix by 2030, and reduce its carbon emissions by 40 percent, exceeding the goal set by the United Nations Paris Accord, as the company’s website notes.
We Energies has been getting even more of its power (51 percent) from coal. But the company is now embracing renewables with a vengeance, particularly solar power. Late last year the company announced it would shut down its coal-fired plant in Pleasant Prairie while replacing the lost power with new solar farms.
As Daniel Krueger, senior vice president, recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “I think that it is fair to say, going forward, it’s going to be solar, wind, batteries and some natural gas.”
These changes are coming not because of a sudden embrace of environmentalism by the utilities, but strictly because of market forces: the huge decline in the price of wind and solar power. The price of solar, We Energies CEO Gale Klappa marveled, has dropped 70 percent in recent years.
These changes are coming in the face of a state government that has been hostile to clean energy.
In the nearly eight years Walker has served as governor, he has expressed no interest in renewable energy, while garnering huge donations from fossil fuel tycoons the Koch brothers. Wisconsin had begun to attract companies looking to do wind power, but a law passed by Walker and the Republicans in 2011 delayed any development for a year. Members of the state Public Service Commission appointed by Walker have been unfriendly to alternative energy. The PSC approved a plan by We Energies to charge a fee for homeowners installing solar power, which would have discouraged solar installation.
But the courts overruled the fee and that has helped make it easier to install solar power. “We feel there’s more predictability than we’ve had for years in the regulatory environment for solar,” notes Tyler Huebner, executive director of Renew Wisconsin.
Meanwhile some conservatives in Wisconsin have begun to embrace renewable energy as prices have declined. Perhaps that — and the change in philosophy by the big utilities — explains why the PSC has suddenly become more interested in alternative energy. After reducing funding for the Focus on Energy program that provides rebates to customers installing alternative energy, the PSC did an about-face and increased the funding from $4 million per year to $5.5 million annually.
Wisconsin is still far behind other states in clean energy. A recent analysis of 12 Midwestern states by Clean Jobs Midwest found that when it comes to jobs in renewable energy, Wisconsin ranks behind all but two of those 12 states. Our state ranks well behind even conservative Republican bulwarks like Kansas, Nebraska, and South and North Dakota in the creation of renewable energy jobs.
Another analysis, back in March, by the Institute for Self-Reliance, ranked the states on how their energy policies helped or hindered local clean energy action and gave Wisconsin a grade of “F,” coming in 33rd place among the 50 states. “The state has just two policies encouraging local [clean energy] power,” the study found.
But Wisconsin is now poised to take a great leap forward. “We’ve hit a tipping point in Wisconsin,” says Huebner. “We expect continued increases in renewable energy.”
Walker has yet to make any statements saluting the switch by the state’s big utilities — which will have obvious health benefits as emissions are lowered, and will help the state economy by giving more business to solar and wind-power companies.
“It does present a big opportunity for jobs and economic development in the state,” Huebner notes.
Meanwhile he expects the tension between liberals and conservatives on alternative energy to begin melting away. “Now you get the environmental benefits of clean energy at no added cost,” he says. “So there’s not a loser here. So that changes the dynamics entirely. That’s helping depoliticize it.”
Meaning you can also expect less verbal emissions generated by coal power fans as well.
Bruce Murphy is editor of UrbanMilwaukee.