Who'll be able to pay what the power companies will need to charge? It costs a certain amount for them to stay in business, as they sit. If people use less of the utility's energy, they'll need to charge more per kilowatt hour. We Energies used to have an on-hold message with "Did you know that WE Energy's prices are some of the lowest in the Midwest?", but that ended over 5 years ago. Now, they're one of the most expensive, behind Michigan. This article shows one of the problems here- they have increased rates every year, by about 3-4%. They say they needed to increase capacity due to higher demand, but the Oak Creek coal-fired plant wasn't wanted by the residents and as it turned out, it wasn't needed. What was the result? A rate increase, because they said the demand wasn't there. They insisted on using coal and after it was built, the EPA came in and fined them for not having enough scrubbers on the stacks. Rate increase. They did their usual "It's good enough" for the ash dump and it slid into Lake Michigan. Rate increase. This Winter was more mild than usual and we used less natural gas, so I guess it's time for another rate increase.

[Link: wuwm.com]

They don't make it easy to add solar here and that's the way they like it- why would they want to give up their monopoly? 20 states can show for power, but WI isn't one of them.