(The Center Square) – Tom Tiffany says Wisconsin barely has enough affordable electricity for its manufacturing economy. He’s worried about what will happen when the state’s new data centers come online.

Tiffany said Wisconsin has to focus on building a new power grid that can meet the future needs of the state.

“It is a key issue we have to deal with. Because Wisconsin is so manufacturing heavy, and those manufacturing businesses use enormous amounts of electricity, when you add AI in, we should not be closing a [power] plant. Gov Evers’ Public Service Commission has been closing plants ever since he came in as governor. We should not close a single plant. That’s where we start. And then we start building new, including nuclear.”

Tiffany said Wisconsin used to have some of the most affordable power supplies, but now says we have some of the most expensive electricity.

And he said Evers’ focus on renewable energy hasn’t helped.

“This whole conversion of some of the most beautiful farmland, not just in America, but in the world, thousands of acres here in Wisconsin, is it is just so misplaced,” Tiffany said. “We are destroying some of the best farmland for intermittent sources of power that are not going to provide for a manufacturing economy.”

Wisconsin is heavily leaning into the new data center economy.

There are data centers planned for Port Washington and Caledonia, as well as a massive Microsoft data center at the old FoxConn site.

That data center is expected to become Wisconsin’s single largest electricity customer. It’s expected to need the same amount of power as 300,000 homes.

“I’ll never forget, 30 years ago you would see those rankings where Wisconsin was among the lowest cost electricity producers in the Midwest,” Tiffany said. “We were like number two. Now we’re the second highest here in the Midwest.”