By the numbers
More of Wisconsin’s electricity now comes from solar panels than from wind turbines, but both produce a small amount of power compared to the state’s now-leading source, natural gas, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show.
The second-largest source of power is coal — the leading source until recently. The third-largest source, nuclear power, maintained its share.
Among smaller sources, hydroelectric generation continued its five-year decline and wind generation ticked upward slightly. Solar grew swiftly.
The figures show that overall power generation increased between 2023 and 2024 by about 5.1% from 61,300 gigawatt-hours (GWh) to 64,500 GWh.
Over the past 24 years, the power generated by coal has dropped by about half from 41,200 GWh to just 20,800 GWh. Much of that generation has been replaced by natural gas, which has risen from 5,500 GWh to 26,700 GWh.
Nuclear energy generation has been largely steady over the period, producing 11,500 GWh in 2001 and 10,100 GWh in 2024. The share dropped when the Kewaunee Power Station was decommissioned in 2013, leaving the Point Beach Nuclear Plant as the state’s only nuclear source.
Solar power generation was first recorded at a utility scale in 2014 at 1.2 GWh. It expended dramatically in 2017 — jumping from 2.7 to 21.4 GWh — and has been growing rapidly from 37.9 GWh in 2019 to 2,939 GWh in 2024.
