Wisconsin electricity rates

Wisconsin's rates sit above Minnesota, Iowa and downstate Illinois for a straightforward reason: its utilities have spent heavily and recovered it. Over the past two decades they built new gas generation, added environmental controls to coal units they later retired, invested in transmission, and more recently bought large solar and battery projects. Wisconsin regulators have generally allowed full recovery with returns on equity at the higher end of the national range.

The state also has relatively little cheap in-state resource to fall back on. It has no significant hydro, its nuclear presence shrank when Kewaunee closed, and it imports a meaningful share of its energy across MISO.

Fuel-cost adjustment mechanisms mean fuel swings do show up in Wisconsin bills, but they are the smaller part of the story. The larger part is capital.

We Energies serves Milwaukee and the southeast, Wisconsin Public Service the northeast, Alliant Energy's Wisconsin Power and Light the south and west, and Xcel Energy's Northern States Power the far west. Municipal utilities and co-ops serve many smaller communities, often at noticeably lower rates.

Wisconsin has no residential retail choice. Utilities are vertically integrated and the Public Service Commission sets rates through periodic cases.

Focus On Energy is the statewide efficiency programme, funded through a bill charge, and its rebates on heat pumps, insulation and water heating are among the more generous in the Midwest.

If you have a choice of where to live within a metro area, Wisconsin's municipal utilities frequently charge materially less than the neighbouring investor-owned utility for identical service. It is one of the few states where the boundary is worth checking.