Fact Check: Tom Tiffany’s Data Center Math Doesn’t Add Up

To: Interested Parties
From: Evergreen Action Midwest Regional Advocate Lauren Reeg
Date: Thursday, October 22, 2026
Re: Fact Check: Tom Tiffany’s Data Center Math Doesn’t Add Up

Less than two weeks from Election Day, Wisconsin voters are asking two questions of the next governor: how will you lower my energy bills, and what will you do about Big Tech and the data center boom? Last night’s debate was a chance to answer both. Instead, Tom Tiffany leaned on a scare number. 

Wisconsinites are skeptical. Electricity demand is climbing as data centers come online, and a recent Marquette Law School poll found that 74% of voters believe data centers cost more than they deliver. Families want to know who will pay for the power plants, transmission lines, and grid upgrades that growth requires, and whether it will be them. 

Tiffany’s answer was to repeat a claim that powering data centers with clean energy would swallow up 100,000 acres of the state’s farmland. The number is built to alarm. It doesn’t hold up, and it hides the question that matters most to families: who ends up paying for the energy that data centers demand?

Wisconsin can protect its farmland, hold Big Tech accountable, and add affordable homegrown energy all at once. Tiffany’s talking points pretend those goals are in conflict. 

Here’s what the facts actually show: 

Fact: Tiffany’s “100,000 acres” claim rests on a scenario nobody has proposed. 

Tiffany doesn’t cite his methodology for how his team calculated this number. However, realistic energy portfolios blend wind, solar, storage, and other clean resources, each with a very different footprint. 

Even taken at face value, the claim still collapses under its own weight. 100,000 acres of solar could produce nearly half of all the electricity Wisconsin generates in a year. That is far more than two data center campuses would need.

Fact: Tiffany’s math inflates the land needed two to three times over.

UW-Extension research puts solar’s footprint at roughly six acres per megawatt of electricity generation. Tiffany’s figure implies something closer to 18 acres per MW. A real Wisconsin project supports UW-Extension’s estimate. Badger State Solar is planned at 149 MW on about 1,200 acres. At that ratio, the roughly 5.5 GW the two data center projects would need comes to about 44,000 acres. That’s well under half of Tiffany’s number, and that’s assuming solar does all the work.

For perspective, Wisconsin golf courses occupy around 76,000 acres, roughly 30% of that on prime farmland. Nobody has declared a farmland emergency over the fairways. 

Fact: Well-sited solar can protect farmland and keep it productive. 

Solar projects can preserve soil health, support livestock grazing, and return land to full agricultural production once they’re decommissioned. RENEW Wisconsin estimates solar could supply about half the state’s annual electricity needs using less than 1% of its farmland. The answer is responsible siting and strong agricultural protections, not a blanket ban on clean energy. 

Fact: Blocking clean energy is how you raise household bills.

Analysis from Clean Wisconsin finds wind and solar are among the lowest-cost options for new generation in the state. With no fuel costs, they also shield customers from the price swings that come with natural gas. 

The stakes of shutting the door are concrete. An independent Greenline Insights analysis projects that halting new wind and solar development, whichTiffany’s proposed restrictions could produce, would add $5.2 billion in household energy costs through 2040. That’s $2,029 per household. 

So, who pays? 

Electricity demand is growing, and the question that matters is who pays to meet it. Billions of dollars in new power plants, transmission lines, and grid upgrades are on the table. Without strong protections, those costs will land on households and small businesses. Wisconsin needs enforceable cost protections for data centers, transparent utility planning, and a Public Service Commission with real oversight. 

What gets built matters too. Utilities should have to prove that major investments are the most cost-effective option before families are asked to foot the bill, and that test should apply to every resource, including wind, storage, and distributed energy. Shutting the door on clean energy would only limit Wisconsin’s choices and leave us behind our neighbors.

Wisconsin doesn’t have to trade one priority for another. A full range of cost-effective energy keeps the state competitive. 

The debate should be about keeping household energy bills down and holding utilities and large users accountable. Tiffany’s 100,000-acre claim does neither. It’s a distraction, and families would pay for it on their monthly bills.