Nov. 30, 2025 noon
(WGTD)---The Somers Village Board has a special meeting coming up this week to discuss a proposed natural-gas fired power plant that would be built either adjacent to or nearly adjacent to a proposed data center.
The meeting is scheduled for Thursday evening at 5:30 in Somers village hall.
The agenda calls for a presentation from and a discussion with the developer of the proposed Red Oak Ridge Energy Center. The developer is Invenergy--the same firm that built the large Town of Paris solar farm before turning it over to We Energies.
Thursday night's agenda does not include an opportunity for citizens to speak.
If approved, Red Oak would be the second new "peaker plant" for the area. A peaker plant is a facility that is run only intermittently when demand warrants.
This peaker plant would have the potential to generate as much as half of the energy produced by the Hoover Dam.
Environmentalists are vehemently opposed to natural gas-fired power plants, saying they contribute to climate change.
For more on the proposal, here's a story from Wisconsin Public Radio.
The proposed power plant is near a site earmarked by Microsoft for a proposed data center, although a construction timetable has not been cited and Kenosha officials have yet to give final approval.
Environmentalists and consumer groups are concerned over the amount of energy that it takes to run a data center.
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