We Energies to Burn Coal in Oak Creek, Wisconsin For Another Year Due to High Energy Demand
June 27, 2025 - The coal will be burning at the We Energies plant in Oak Creek a year longer than expected.
The company announced June 25 it will extend the operating life of two coal units at the Oak Creek Power Plant “to meet high energy demand periods through the end of 2026,” a news release from the company said.
The plant was scheduled to retire at the end of 2025.
Madison-based nonprofit Clean Wisconsin took issue with the announcement, putting out a statement June 26 that said the move “saddles customers with at least another year of expensive, less reliable coal.”
We Energies received approval May 22 from the Wisconsin Public Service Commission for a $1.5 billion plan to build natural gas plants in both Oak Creek and the Town of Paris in Kenosha County. We Energies said the plants were needed to supplement solar and wind power generation and help cover growing electricity demands.
The Town of Paris plant project has already been delayed about a year because the PSC decided it must be built on an alternative site in the town.
The decision to delay retiring the Oak Creek coal units ? which were put into service in the 1960s ? is based on two factors, We Energies said:
Tightened energy supply requirements in the Midwest power market.
The need to serve customers with safe, reliable, and affordable energy.
Mike Hooper, president of We Energies, said reliability is at the forefront of everything the company does.
“Just this month, national grid experts raised the alarm of elevated risks of power supply shortages and price spikes due to plant closures and increasing energy demand in the Upper Midwest,” Hooper said in the release. “We will continue to evaluate the future of the plant based on capacity needs, available generation and what is financially prudent.”
Clean Wisconsin Energy and Air Manager Ciaran Gallagher called the company's claims of elevated power supply shortages in the Midwest overblown. She said this decision is harmful and a “shortsighted, profit-driven approach" to energy production and planning.
“We Energies has once again failed to plan for the future, failed to appropriately invest in cheaper clean energy sources, and failed to keep costs down for Wisconsinites,” Gallagher said in the Clean Wisconsin release. “We Energies is going back on promises it made to communities long burdened by toxic air emissions from that plant.”