Sierra Club Launches New Report and Tools Showing Need for Urgent Utility Action on Climate Crisis

Madison, WI -- The Sierra Club released a groundbreaking national report and research tool today, which grades the 50 largest investor-owned utilities across the country based on their current plans for the next decade for retiring coal plants, investing in clean energy, and canceling plans for construction of new gas plants -- allowing readers to judge each utility’s climate progress and how it compares to what science demands. The report, which includes two Wisconsin-based utilities, demonstrates that across the country, the utility sector is lagging behind what’s necessary to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, and is not on track to meet President Biden's goals of 100% clean energy by 2035. The next decade is critically important to our efforts to decarbonize the electric sector and achieve an emissions pathway consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

Wisconsin’s utilities are not currently on a path to reducing their emissions quickly enough to avoid a climate disaster. Wisconsin’s largest electricity provider, WEC Energy Group, the parent company of We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service, is among the 15 utilities in the country with the most coal generation remaining without a plan to retire by 2030, and has stated that it intends to operate its massive 1300 MW Elm Road Generating Station in southeastern Wisconsin through the mid-century.

Over the last year, WEC Energy and Alliant Energy have both announced proposals to retire coal plants early and invest in substantial amounts of clean energy. However, the utilities’ planned clean energy generation for the next decade is 75% less than their current coal generation. The public-facing data dashboard, entitled “The Dirty Truth About Utility Climate Pledges,” factors in current plans approved by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin in which companies have announced plans for coal plant retirements and clean energy development. 

“Sierra Club supports Wisconsin utilities in their recent commitments to retire uneconomic and polluting coal plants, and to make major investments in clean energy. We also need them to make an action plan to move on from the rest of their coal and replace that with clean energy this decade,” said Elizabeth Katt Reinders, Deputy Regional Director with Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “Looking at the amount of renewables that utilities have pledged to build compared to the vast amount of coal generation with no public plans to retire those plants early, it’s clear that utilities still have a long way to go if we are to protect people and the planet from catastrophic climate change.”

Through Governor Evers’ Task Force on Climate Change and Executive Order calling for 100% carbon-free electricity, the state has made clear its intention to move from coal to clean energy, with recommendations to develop strategies for closing coal plants and to prevent new fossil fuel infrastructure. Yet Wisconsin utilities’ current plans fail to put them on track to meet those goals. There are five remaining coal plants in Wisconsin that have not been announced for retirement.

“It’s critical that Wisconsin utilities make concrete plans with timelines to phase out dirty coal and transition to 100 percent clean energy in the next ten years to limit the worst effects of climate change. Long term goals can be important for setting vision, but we need big and bold action to move off coal in these next few years,” said Laura Lane, Chair of the Wisconsin Chapter of the Sierra Club. 

The national report found that if the 50 companies highlighted in the study were to retire their remaining coal plants by 2030, it would help avoid over 2,800 premature deaths, 1,700 heart attacks, and 18,000 asthma attacks every year.