Alliant Energy has announced plans for six solar projects totaling 414 megawatts as part of its move to add 1,000 megawatts of solar power in Wisconsin by 2023. The six projects — projected to cost $515 million — would be in Dodge, Grant, Green, Rock and Waushara counties.

The projects, which will require approval by the Public Service Commission, are in addition to six solar projects totaling 675 megawatts that Alliant announced in May of 2020. Those projects are in Grant, Jefferson, Richland, Rock, Sheboygan and Wood counties.

The Wisconsin Public Service Commission has accepted utilities’ plans for managing the amount of money customers owe on unpaid utility bills as many people have fallen behind due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, the PSC issued an order in March that barred utilities from disconnecting service due to nonpayment during the COVID-19 crisis. Regulators decided to end the year-long moratorium on utility shutoffs beginning April 15, 2021.

As of February, more than 93,000 residential customers met the threshold for disconnection due to unpaid bills along with roughly 4,800 business customers. By the end of last year, utilities had seen customers’ past-due balances grow to at least $309 million — an increase of fifty-eight percent from the year before.

Travero, the Iowa based logistics solutions subsidiary of Alliant Energy and parent company of CRANDIC Rail, has announced a transition in executive leadership. Kevin Burke has retired as President of Travero after 40 years with the company. Lisha Coffey has become the new the president after most recently serving as the company’s Chief Operating Officer.

A new law signed by Gov. Tony Evers provides for additional funding for the Citizens Utility Board (CUB), which often battles with utilities over rate cases. The changes will allow the PSC to authorize up to $900,000 a year to the CUB with money coming from Wisconsin’s investor-owned utilities. It also revises a 2017 law that encouraged utility settlements in rate cases but created a timing mismatch from when CUB worked on cases and when it could request funding.

WEC Energy Group has announced its utility subsidiaries will not seek approval from state regulators for potential increases to electric, natural gas and steam rates that would have gone into effect January 1. The utilities, which include Wisconsin Electric, Wisconsin Public Service and Wisconsin Gas, would have sought rate increases of four percent to six
percent to recover more than $300 million in revenue deficiencies.

Instead, the utilities are seeking approval from the Public Service Commission to apply certain balances from transmission credits, earnings sharing and cost escrow to cover a portion of the revenue deficiency. Management at the utilities would then be responsible for covering half to two-thirds of the revenue deficiency by finding efficiencies and cost reductions.

Governor Tony Evers has reappointed two Wisconsin utility regulators. Evers appointed Rebecca Valcq to a second two-year term as chair of the Public Service Commission and Tyler Huebner to a six year term as commissioner. Valcq was appointed to the commission in 2019. Her term expires in 2025. Huebner was appointed last year to serve out the term of former Commissioner Mike Huebsch, who stepped down in February 2020 with one year left on his term.

Commissioner Ellen Nowak was appointed in January 2019 for a second time by former Governor Scott Walker to complete the term of former Chairman Lon Roberts. Her term expires in 2023.

WEC Energy Group is seeking approval from state regulators to spend $360 million to own and create the first large-scale solar and battery storage project in Wisconsin.

The Paris Solar-Battery Park in Kenosha County would feature 200 MW of solar power generation and another 110 MW of battery storage. The solar arrays would be enough to power 60,000 homes while the battery storage system would discharge power after the sun goes down.

A record number of Alliant Energy’s residential customers found low-cost or no-cost energy efficiency options through
the Focus on Energy program in 2020. Product discounts and the convenience of an online marketplace drove a
135 percent increase in participating customers who made their home more comfortable and efficient. Alliant Energy’s
energy efficiency programs make energy-saving upgrades more affordable and are part of the company’s purpose driven
strategy to serve customers and build stronger communities.

We Energies’ parent company has agreed to invest $302 million to acquire ninety percent ownership in a wind farm to be built in Kansas to generate renewable energy for Facebook. The company says the facility will be called the Jayhawk Wind Farm and be built in Bourbon and Crawford counties in Kansas. Jayhawk Wind Farm will sell the energy it generates under long-term contract to Facebook. The Jayhawk site will consist of 70 GE wind turbines with a combined capacity of more than 190 megawatts. Invenergy LLC of Chicago will acquire the remaining ten percent ownership interest and will operate the facility. The project will be part of a $16 billion capital plan that WEC Energy announced in November 2020. The plan includes investing nearly $2 billion in solar, wind and battery storage and retiring older, less-efficient fossil-fueled generation by 2025.

Three of Wisconsin’s largest utilities plan to spend $446 million on a second large-scale solar farm with battery storage. WEC Energy Group and Madison Gas and Electric have filed a request with the Public Service Commission to buy a 250-megawatt Walworth County solar farm that would generate enough electricity for about 75,000 homes and include a 75-megawatt battery. The project has been developed by Invenergy, a Chicago-based energy company. It sits on about 2,000 acres stretching west from Delavan to the Rock County line. The Commission is expected to make a decision on the construction permit by summer. WEC subsidiaries, We Energy and Wisconsin Public Service Corp., would together own 90 percent and MGE ten percent.

Tom Metcalfe, President of We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service, will leave Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group at the end of the year, the utility has reported. Metcalfe has told the company that he and his family have made the difficult decision to relocate to Australia for personal reasons.

In a message to employees, WEC Energy Group Executive Chairman Gale Klappa and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Fletcher said Metcalfe “will remain fully engaged in carrying out his responsibilities through the end of this year, and he will continue to support the company until his retirement in July, 2022.” WEC has indicated a new president would be
named later this year.

The Public Service Commission has voted 2-1 to open an investigation called a “Roadmap to Zero Carbon” to explore the economic and environmental considerations related to the deployment of more clean energy technologies. According to the notice, the commission will study topics including:

• Changes in utility-scale generation that reduce overall carbon emissions, including the retirement of existing fossil fuel plants.
• Deployment of customer-level resources and programs that help customers control their energy use and lower their costs.
• Deployment of new technologies, such as battery storage and micro grids.
• The design and operation of the regional wholesale market and transmission grid.

The investigation will also consider plans by each of the state’s five largest utilities to eliminate carbon emissions by 2050, recommendations of the governor’s climate change task force and a new Office of Sustainability and Clean Energy, and strategies for creating jobs and lowering costs.