How Integrated Resource Planning Would Save Wisconsinites Money

Utility bills are rising rapidly for Wisconsin consumers. While energy costs are increasing around the country, the problem is compounded in Wisconsin because the state lacks a robust, long-term planning process.  

State regulators are often faced with siloed, one-off proposals for new energy generation resources that are not connected to a long-term vision for how a utility plant meets customers’ energy needs in the most affordable way. There aren’t currently regulatory tools in Wisconsin law to require consideration of modern, affordable solutions. As a result, ratepayers spend hundreds of millions of extra dollars every year keeping inefficient, aging power plants online. 

Changing the law to allow for better planning and procurement of resources would lower utility bills for Wisconsin homes and businesses. To find out how much consumers might save if the state were to modernize its resource planning, Advanced Energy United commissioned Synapse Energy Economics to examine potential retroactive savings from 2021-2024.  

The research team replaced existing power plants with more optimized sets of energy generators. The report finds that during those years, consumers would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars if Wisconsin had utilized a comprehensive planning process. For example: 

• Robust resource planning could have saved We Energies customers an annual average of $164 million per plant from 2021 to 2024.   

• Alliant customers could have saved an average of $10 million per plant from 2021 to 2024.   

• Replacing the Elm Road power plant with an optimized set of energy generators could have saved We Energies residential ratepayers $681 per household over the 2021-2024 period.   

• Optimized replacement of Edgewater could have saved Alliant households $123 per household over the 2021-2024 period.

To learn more, visit wienergyfuture.org.

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