The state's Public Service Commission has indicated it will not grant an exemption to Oracle, potentially requiring the company to provide a substantial financial guarantee for power infrastructure related to its planned data center campus.

According to a recent report referenced by IT Home, this decision means Oracle may need to secure a $7 billion guarantee for the electrical infrastructure supporting its proposed $15 billion data center campus in Wisconsin. This obligation could result in approximately $100 million in additional annual costs for the company.

The Port Washington data center campus in Wisconsin, a joint development project involving OpenAI, Oracle, and Vantage Data Centers, was initially announced for October 2025. The facility is designed with a capacity of around 1 gigawatt and is slated to begin customer deliveries in the second half of 2027.

This requirement stems from a policy by the Wisconsin utility company We Energies. The policy mandates that any data center developer with a Standard & Poor's credit rating below A- must provide collateral for associated power infrastructure construction. The measure is designed to ensure that data centers bear the cost of their own power infrastructure expansion, thereby protecting residential consumers from potential electricity rate increases.

In a related development, a separate report indicates that a significant number of U.S. utility companies and data center developers have signed a pledge. This commitment aims to ensure that the growing power consumption from artificial intelligence operations does not lead to higher electricity prices for general consumers, with nearly 200 entities reportedly covered by this agreement.