The President and CEO of WEC Energy Group sees the potential for more hyperscale data centers with very large customers.  Scott Lauber made the comments during the company’s earnings call. He said he’s optimistic about new projects in Wisconsin now that the Public Service Commission has approved special rates for very large customers in response to data center development.

“We hopefully will have another announcement to make” this fall, Lauber said. 

Tech companies or developers will be expected to pay all costs tied to power plants and transmission lines being built to serve their data centers. Even without new large customers, the company is planning for a 3.9 gigawatt increase in demand over the next five years due to Microsoft’s $20 billion investment in data centers in Mount Pleasant and the $15 billion data center campus being built by Vantage Data Centers in Port Washington.