As bad as California's situation currently is, it could get even worse this summer when the peak loads hit the state. No end is in sight. Early in the debate, Wisconsin recognized that energy is critical to people's safety and the state's economic health. Blackouts that leave homes without heat during a Wisconsin winter can be devastating. Wisconsin businesses are becoming increasingly dependent on electricity to run their computers and support electronic commerce.
Electricity is the oxygen of the Internet.
An Internet economy will not work if electricity is not available at the outlet. The Wisconsin focus has been and should continue to be on building needed electric infrastructure. Conservation efforts have greatly benefitted Wisconsin by delaying the need for new power plants. However, we now need to build more generation and transmission to meet electric load growth and begin to replace the state's aging fleet of power plants. In Wisconsin, we need to add more than 300 megawatts of generation every year just to keep up with annual growth.