Ozaukee County

Moratoriums and bans

1. April 7, 2026 Port Washington: Referendum (voter-approved). About 66% of voters approved requiring a referendum before the city creates any tax incremental district over $10 million; it does not apply to the existing data center TID. (Spectrum News 1, April 8, 2026; WUWM 89.7 FM, March 31, 2026)

Updates, newest first

1. Sept. 30, 2026 Vantage Lighthouse campus, Port Washington (OpenAI and Oracle Stargate site) · BizTimes reported an Aterio analysis finding construction well along but power delivery tied to a restarted regulatory review, with full capacity most likely around October 2028. (BizTimes Milwaukee, Sept. 30, 2026)
2. June 19, 2026 Vantage Lighthouse campus, Port Washington (OpenAI and Oracle Stargate site) · Oracle America Cloud Services asked Ozaukee County Circuit Court to review the PSC's credit and collateral rules for the tariff that will serve the campus. (Ozaukee County Circuit Court (posted by WPR), June 19, 2026)
3. April 7, 2026 Vantage Lighthouse campus, Port Washington (OpenAI and Oracle Stargate site) · About 66% of voters approved a citizen measure requiring a referendum before the city creates a TID worth more than $10 million; it does not affect the data center's TID. (Spectrum News 1, April 8, 2026; WUWM 89.7 FM, March 31, 2026)
4. April 7, 2026 Port Washington: Referendum (voter-approved) · About 66% of voters approved requiring a referendum before the city creates any tax incremental district over $10 million; it does not apply to the existing data center TID. (Spectrum News 1, April 8, 2026; WUWM 89.7 FM, March 31, 2026)
5. Dec. 17, 2025 Vantage Lighthouse campus, Port Washington (OpenAI and Oracle Stargate site) · Vantage held a ceremonial groundbreaking as crews began site preparation on the 672-acre site. (BizTimes Milwaukee, Dec. 17, 2025)
6. Nov. 4, 2025 Vantage Lighthouse campus, Port Washington (OpenAI and Oracle Stargate site) · The council unanimously created TID No. 5 for the campus over resident objections; the joint review board vote was set for Nov. 18. (WPR, Nov. 5, 2025)
7. Oct. 22, 2025 Vantage Lighthouse campus, Port Washington (OpenAI and Oracle Stargate site) · OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage named Port Washington a Stargate site, saying Vantage would fund the power infrastructure under a dedicated We Energies rate. (Business Wire (OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers release), Oct. 22, 2025)
8. Aug. 19, 2025 Vantage Lighthouse campus, Port Washington (OpenAI and Oracle Stargate site) · The Common Council unanimously approved a development agreement for four buildings and annexed nearly 700 acres; Vantage committed at least $8 billion. (City of Port Washington (release posted by WPR), Aug. 20, 2025; WPR, Aug. 21, 2025)

Statewide

2023 Wisconsin Act 19 (the 2023-25 budget) created a sales and use tax exemption, Wis. Stat. 77.54(70), for server, network, power and cooling equipment, other property built into or used at a qualified data center, and electricity, once the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. certifies the center; certification requires a qualified investment within five years of at least $150 million in a county of more than 100,000 people, $100 million in a county of 50,001 to 100,000, or $50 million in smaller counties. (Wisconsin Department of Revenue, July 31, 2024) The Legislative Fiscal Bureau did not price the exemption when it passed in 2023; a later fiscal bureau projection, reported by Wisconsin Watch in April 2026, put the cost at about $1.5 billion in sales tax not collected during construction plus $369 million a year once the Beaver Dam, Port Washington and Mount Pleasant campuses (and a smaller Epic project in Verona) are running. These are forgone-revenue estimates, not payments. (WPR (Wisconsin Watch), April 27, 2026) Assembly Bill 840 / Senate Bill 843 (Zimmerman, Quinn), which would have barred shifting data center grid costs to other customers, required water recycling and DNR water reporting and required on-site renewable generation, passed the Assembly 53-44 on Jan. 20, 2026, and cleared a Senate committee 3-2 on March 13, 2026, but died without a Senate floor vote when the session ended March 23, 2026. (Wisconsin State Legislature, Oct. 20, 2026; Wisconsin State Legislature, Oct. 20, 2026) Assembly Bill 1036 / Senate Bill 969 (Moses, Jacque), which would have barred data centers and local governments from agreements, including nondisclosure agreements, that keep data center plans from the public, and barred local approval of a project tied to a violating agreement, cleared a Senate committee 4-1 on March 13, 2026, but failed to pass when the session ended March 23, 2026. (Wisconsin State Legislature, Oct. 20, 2026; Wisconsin State Legislature, Oct. 20, 2026) Assembly Bill 722 (Democratic bill from Rep. Angela Stroud, with Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin) would have created a very large customer utility class, water-use rules, a 70% renewable requirement and prevailing-wage rules for large data centers; WPR reported in January 2026 that Republican leaders had not scheduled a hearing, and it failed when the session ended March 23, 2026. (Wisconsin State Legislature, Oct. 20, 2026; WPR, Jan. 7, 2026) PSC docket 6630-TE-113: We Energies proposed its Very Large Customer tariff and a companion Bespoke Resources tariff in March 2025; the commission approved them with changes on April 24, 2026 (final decision May 21, 2026), lowering eligibility from 500 MW to 100 MW, requiring 15-year minimum terms, removing a capacity-only option so these customers pay 100% of new generation costs, and tightening credit and collateral rules. (WFRV Local 5, April 24, 2026; Clean Wisconsin (filing in PSC docket 6630-TE-113), June 2026; Clean Wisconsin (press release via Urban Milwaukee), July 9, 2026) We Energies, Vantage and Cloverleaf asked the PSC to reopen the credit-support terms in docket 6630-TE-113 so Oracle could take service at Port Washington; the commission did not take it up, so Clean Wisconsin said the request would be denied by operation of law on July 10, 2026. Oracle America Cloud Services separately petitioned Ozaukee County Circuit Court on June 19, 2026, for review of those terms (case 2026CV000256). (Clean Wisconsin (filing in PSC docket 6630-TE-113), June 2026; Clean Wisconsin (press release via Urban Milwaukee), July 9, 2026; Ozaukee County Circuit Court (posted by WPR), June 19, 2026) PSC docket 6680-TE-115: on May 7, 2026, the commission approved, with changes, Alliant Energy's (Wisconsin Power and Light) individual electric service agreement for Meta's Beaver Dam data center, strengthened the termination charge and directed Alliant to propose a separate large-load tariff under which future data centers above 100 MW must take service. (Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, May 7, 2026; Clean Wisconsin, May 7, 2026) Xcel Energy (Northern States Power-Wisconsin) filed a proposed large-load tariff with the PSC on June 22, 2026, for new loads or expansions of 100 MW or more, with binding 15-year terms, minimum monthly bills and exit fees so these customers cover the full cost of serving them; it cited about 2.9 GW of large-load requests and sought approval by February 2027. Docket number not found in the sources opened. (Xcel Energy (release posted by WPR), June 22, 2026; WPR, June 24, 2026; New Project Media, Aug. 4, 2026) Generation tied largely to data center demand: the PSC approved We Energies' 1,100 MW South Oak Creek gas turbines (docket 6630-CE-317) and 128 MW Paris engines (6630-CE-316), with final decisions July 2, 2025; in November 2025 We Energies sought approval for about 3 GW more (solar, battery and two gas plants, about $5.4 billion), and Invenergy's 1,186 MW Red Oak Ridge gas plant in the Town of Paris (9837-CE-100) is under review, which We Energies plans to buy. (Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, Oct. 20, 2026; Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, Oct. 20, 2026; Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, Oct. 20, 2026; Insight on Business, Nov. 6, 2025; Utility Dive, July 22, 2026) Wisconsin data centers →