Microsoft is being urged to ditch plans to power its new Wisconsin data center with gas amid fears that work on the facility could lock the US state into “30 more years of fossil fuels.”

Environmental and health campaign groups led by Clean Wisconsin have signed an open letter criticizing the decision by Microsoft to use methane gas from We Energies at the site in Racine County.

The cloud giant has permission to develop up to 1,000 acres of land in Mount Pleasant, Racine County, into a data center campus.

Microsoft pushing Wisconsin's climate goals "out of reach"

According to the open letter, which is signed by 12 organizations, We Energies is planning to meet the data center’s power demands by “spending billions of dollars to build new methane gas power plants and pipelines.” According to the Milwaukee Business Journal, the data center will be the biggest electric load served by the state utility.

This is described as a “massive buildout that will push our state’s climate goals out of reach, locking us into 30 more years of fossil fuels at a time when we all know we must rapidly transition to clean energy.”

The letter said: “It’s time for Wisconsin to leave these dangerous ways to produce energy behind, not double-down on dirty fuels in the name of new technology.

“Microsoft’s recently-announced plan to help fund a currently unspecified 250MW solar project in Wisconsin is a good start, but this represents just a fraction of the data center’s energy needs. There must be more.”

Microsoft said in March that it is working with energy company National Grid to co-fund a 250MW solar energy project in Wisconsin. This will be up and running by 2027.

Gas pipelines necessary for clean energy transition?

In response to the letter, We Energies spokesman Brendan Conway told the Wisconsin Examiner that the new pipeline was necessary to ensure reliable supply as the grid transitions from fossil fuels to clean energy. Many data center operators are turning to gas as an energy source, and while it generates lower carbon emissions than most fossil fuels, it is still much more damaging for the environment than renewable sources such as wind and solar.

Conway said: “Now more than ever, it is critical for us to have quick-start gas plants available and running in our state for those times when intermittent renewable generation cannot meet customers’ energy needs.”

He said gas plants were “the cheapest, most reliable and lowest carbon approach to support our customers when solar and wind are not able to provide enough power.”

Microsoft broke ground on the first plot of land in Mount Pleasant last year. It originally planned to develop 315 acres of land previously set aside for a Foxconn manufacturing hub.

The cloud company gained approval for another 1,000-acre expansion earlier this year. Since then it has been busy buying up the land it needs to make this happen, its most recent purchase being a 160-acre parcel it acquired for $43 million earlier this month.

In total, it expects to spend $3.3 billion building out the campus. DCD has approached Microsoft for comment on the letter.