Hopes and tensions over renewable energy in rural Wisconsin | Here & Now

As to the rising cost of energy, many people want to see an even bigger turn to renewable sources. Solar panel fields and wind turbines have been cropping up next to and on top of Wisconsin farms for a couple of decades now. But as reporter Stephen Potter explains, not everyone is on board. Tom Wilcox has farmed the same plots of land around his home in Clark County for more than 20 years. Agriculture is good land use. He's admittedly old-fashioned with how he goes about it. You've got to understand, I farm like it's 1950s. He uses older equipment to harvest his hay and soybeans. And he mixes his own corn feed for beef cattle, chickens and turkeys. And he prefers it that way. It's not that we're making a lot of money on these animals. It's the lifestyle. But there is something that he feels threatens the work of farmers across Wisconsin. That's the increase of renewable energy projects such as wind and solar power. He says that the acreage used for such projects is just too valuable. At some point, we're going to have to decide, you know, do we want to use up all this tillable land? I personally, I don't. We need to preserve our valuable farmland in the state of Wisconsin and really everywhere. To advocate against these developments, Wilcox leads the volunteer group known as Farmland First. They attend community meetings, fairs and parades and reach out to public officials to stop developments that have been proposed. He says most of his fellow rural Wisconsin residents don't want wind turbines and solar panel fields near them. If you go anywhere around here to a public forum, you wind up being like a 90-10 split. And the residents really don't want this. And usually the people that are for it are going to get paid. Farmland First is actively opposing two projects nearby. It's basically a city of farms, and there's too many people here for this kind of project. On the other side of this energy debate, several utility companies and clean energy organizations are pushing to have more solar and wind projects, saying we need them. It can be controversial for sure. Alex Beld is with Renew Wisconsin. They say renewable energy projects make economic sense. The wind keeps blowing, the sun keeps shining. Those energy sources aren't usually impacted by things like tariffs or global conflict. Proponents also say the benefits go beyond just money. Even if there wasn't at this point a great economic argument to be made for renewables, there's a huge environmental health and just human health argument to be made. Beld says his group understands there's resistance. There are people who don't want to see the landscape change or see farmland get used for something else. But he says the needs outweigh the costs. The goal is to completely transform our economy and our energy system so that it's all running on clean energy. For the utility companies, renewable energy projects are big business. The renewables are a great way for us to make big and positive impacts in our communities. Ben LaPerry is in charge of commercial operations for Alliant Energy, one of the biggest public utility companies in the state. We have our wind portfolio that's growing. We have our solar portfolio that's established and one of the largest operating solar portfolios in the upper Midwest. He says Alliant strives for a mixed menu of energy production. There's a need for natural gas and coal to support the around-the-clock energy needs. And then as we've been committed for a number of years now, we think that there's a critical role for renewables that don't have fuel costs and are able to complement some of those traditional energy sources. LaPerry also points to local funding generated by taxing power per megawatt that utility companies are required to pay. Let me start with solar. Over the last few years, we've brought 12 utility-scale projects online throughout the state. That's enough power to support over 350,000 residential homes and businesses. In those communities, that's providing critical shared revenues to support community projects. Over the life of those projects, that's going to support communities upwards of $150 million. Across Wisconsin, there are more than 20 large utility-scale solar panel fields. And for wind power, there are more than a dozen projects generating electricity for utility use. Still, LaPerry acknowledges the not-in-my-backyard opposition. You have certain folks in the community that would rather you site the project somewhere else. We spend a lot of time with those community members. We want to hear their concerns. Residents can make their voice heard about these projects. Throughout the entire review process, there are many opportunities for public participation. Megan Sovilash was with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, the agency that regulates utilities in the state. She says approving any new energy project is a very deliberate, drawn-out process. Over six months, the agency conducts reviews, holds public hearings. And then there'll be an open meeting where the commission then deliberates after reviewing that very full record of evidence, and then the commission makes its decision. One major factor that the PSC considers with new power generation applications is the state's growing need for more energy. In the PSC's draft of their new Strategic Energy Assessment for 2026 to 2032, the demand for power jumps more than 40 percent. And more than 70 percent of that increase is due to three active data center developments. If there's a construction project that a utility needs to build to serve a data center, that would come before the commission. But the commission has no authority over data centers. The report also predicts a significant change in the types of energy production over the next six years. In all, coal power will decline 28 percent. Natural gas will increase 14 percent. Wind will increase 6 percent. And solar will increase 11 percent. Such growth in wind and solar will require more landowners to share and lease land. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight. That's a decision that Kathy Haas made more than 20 years ago. I'm turbine number two, and there is 41 in the project. Since the early 2000s, she has leased land for one wind turbine to the Cedar Ridge Wind Farm Project in the town of Empire. The lease payments she and her neighbors receive has made a difference. It's helped a lot of farmers, you know, some of the smaller ones to be able to hang on to their farms. She says the land needed is minimal. The wind turbine project, it's able, you can farm right up to it. All you gave up was just this small piece of land to be able to develop this project and add electricity to the grid. Haas says there was opposition to the project early on, but that's faded. Once they realized that these were going to help keep our taxes down, you know, then it was a little bit, you know, just so that everybody was going to benefit somehow. Everybody's pretty much got used to them up there. Still, for farmers like Tom Wilcox, his opposition is steadfast and represents what he sees is worth protecting. You asked earlier if there's good places for this. Yeah, places where crops don't grow and people don't grow. Reporting from Clark County, I'm Stephen Potter for Here and Now.