Two groups behind construction of a proposed $1-billion natural gas-fired power plant in northern Wisconsin told state officials they are pulling the plug on the project. Dairyland Power Cooperative, headquartered in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and South Shore Energy—a subsidiary of Allete—the parent of Minnesota Power—in a letter to Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission told commissioners the groups would not move forward with the Nemadji Trail Energy Center (NTEC).
The power plant was sited in Superior, in Douglas County, near Lake Superior, and also near Duluth, Minnesota. The letter to the PSC was filed Oct. 28 by Daniel McCourtney, manager of strategic environmental initiatives at Allete, which had distanced itself from the project late last year.
“No construction has occurred on NTEC or the [generation tie line],” McCourtney wrote in the letter to the PSC. “Accordingly, the owners respectfully request that the commission acknowledge their relinquishment of all rights associated with the [plant approvals].”
The PSC had approved the project in 2020. The commission had granted certificates of public convenience and necessity for construction of a natural gas-fired power plant with generation capacity of between 550 and 625 MW. The utilities had proposed the NTEC as a way to provide baseload electricity to replace retiring coal-fired generation, and support power reliability as they made more investments in renewable energy.
Several Gas-Fired Power Stations Move Forward
Other gas-fired power plant projects are moving forward in Wisconsin. Regulators recently approved Invenergy’s request to build two new gas-fired stations in the southern part of the state, and We Energies—the state’s largest electric utility—has said it would buy the plants. The Red Oak Ridge Energy Center project would be a nearly 1.2-GW facility; the Foundry Ridge Energy Center would have 324 MW of generation capacity.
We Energies also received approval in 2025 for two new gas-fired facilities, in Oak Creek (1,100 MW) and Paris (128 MW). POWER previously reported on the utility’s plan to build a gas-fired plant in Outagamie County; the Fox North Energy Center would have 750 MW of generation capacity.
Invenergy in August filed an engineering plan with the PSC for two gas-fired stations in Calumet County in northeast Wisconsin that would have a combined generation capacity of nearly 2 GW. We Energies has included the power plants in its regulatory filings, and has said the 1,200-MW Forest Junction Energy Center and the 750-MW Union Depot Energy Center could be online by December 2031.
Legal Challenges
Indigenous and environmental groups, including Clean Wisconsin and the Sierra Club, had filed legal challenges against the NTEC facility. The groups also had asked the state’s Supreme Court to hear a lawsuit that challenged the PSC’s approval of the plant, though the court declined to take the case. There also was local opposition, and the NTEC also had permitting delays.
Jennifer Cady, vice president of public policy for Minnesota Power, in a December filing to the PSC said that air, wetland, and construction permits for the project had expired due to delays. Minnesota Power also nixed an agreement with its subsidiary South Shore Energy to buy power from the plant.
City officials in Superior also had denied approval for the plant, amid concerns from local residents about noise and pollution, and the impact on surrounding wetlands. Regional tribes and environmental groups also raised those concerns. The plant’s location would have been near a cemetery in Superior in which some 200 ancestors of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa are buried.
Project supporters had said the facility would have benefited the area with about 350 jobs during construction, and another two dozen full-time jobs once in operation. Officials who supported the plant said it would have generated about $1 million in annual tax revenue.
—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.
