We Energies announced it will extend the operating lives of coal-fired Units 7 and 8 at its Oak Creek Power Plant through the end of 2027, delaying retirement of the 60-plus-year-old plant for a third time.
At a combined 610 MW, the units entered service in the 1960s. They were scheduled to retire at the end of 2026.
The latest postponement conforms to a trend of We Energies asserting it still requires the units to meet rising demand in Wisconsin. In June 2025, the utility announced it would defer idling the units until the end of 2026, citing a need to meet periods of high demand. At the time, the plant was scheduled to retire at the end of 2025. That followed an earlier extension of a 2024 retirement date.
In a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, We Energies’ parent company, WEC Energy Group, said its April 1 decision is rooted in “two critical factors: reliability and affordability.”
“This past winter the Midwest power market experienced tightened energy supply and higher energy costs during the extreme temperatures. Keeping Units 7 and 8 available will better position [We Energies] to serve customers with safe, reliable and affordable energy on the hottest and coldest days of the year,” WEC said.
The parent company added that the units’ extension would serve as a “bridge until new dispatchable generation begins to come online, which is expected in late 2027.”
Based on WEC’s investor relations materials from late 2025, data center plans from Microsoft in Mount Pleasant and Vantage in Port Washington could effectively double We Energies’ energy demand by 2030. The two campuses are expected to require a combined 3.9 GW.
We Energies is currently working on constructing new natural gas plants in Oak Creek and Paris. The Public Service Commission approved construction of both plants in 2025.
WEC pledged in 2023 to stop burning coal at power plants by the end of 2032.
The Sierra Club unsurprisingly met the news with criticism.
“We Energies’ digging their heels in on fossil fuels continues to cost Wisconsinites with higher energy bills, more air pollution and climate impacts,” the environmental nonprofit said.
Jadine Sonoda, a campaign coordinator at Sierra Club Wisconsin, asked rhetorically if anyone is “surprised that Wisconsin’s largest and most profitable utility keeps squeezing us for more money?”
“Wisconsinites aren’t oblivious to We Energies’ scheming. We know We Energies can’t be trusted to make good on their promises to retire coal, and we know that they’ll turn to the PSC to approve any rate hikes they can get. Big Tech has been looking to build data centers in Wisconsin as a huge cash-grab, and We Energies wants in with their fossil fuels instead of prioritizing the affordable clean energy transition Wisconsin has been demanding,” Sonoda wrote.
We Energies and WEC’s Wisconsin Public Service both filed requests in early April with the PSC for rate increases in 2027 and 2028.
We Energies has filed a formal request for a 4.7% increase to base electric rates in 2027 and an additional 4.5% in 2028. The utility said the increases involve a $13 increase per month for a typical residential customer in 2027, and an $8 to $9 increase the following year.
The announcement stands to affect We Energies’ ask to recover more than a half-billion dollars in rates for the early retirement of Oak Creek. FERC in early 2025 set the request for settlement and hearing procedures. (See FERC to Weigh in on Cost Recovery of Oak Creek’s Early Retirement.) At the time, the company said it “no longer expects [Oak Creek] to provide net economic benefits to its customers due to the current regulatory climate.”
