Project dossier · Dane County, Wisconsin

QTS Dane County In review

Multi-billion dollar, 750MW renewable-powered data center campus in Dane County, Wisconsin.

Key facts

Operator: QTS Data Centers
Size: 750 MW
Location: Dane County, Wisconsin
Stage today: In review

What to do next

Next step: An application is in the record. Ask the planning office for the next hearing date and request formal notice.

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What has happened so far (16 events)

2025-07-09announcement
QTS Data Centers began exploring a multi-building data center campus on a 615-acre property in the Town of Vienna, Dane County, holding a public drop-in meeting to introduce the concept. · source
2025-07-31public-comment
Local residents and officials raised early questions about the scale, water use, and energy demand of the proposed QTS data center campus in rural Dane County. · source
2025-10-20environmental
Dane County energy office director told Madison sustainability committee the proposed Vienna data center could use about 2.5 times the electricity that all of Dane County currently consumes. · source
2025-11-01filing
QTS planned to submit a formal zoning/annexation application to the DeForest Village Board, triggering village staff due diligence with outside legal and development experts. · source
2025-11-14announcement
QTS and UW-Madison announced a $1.5 million Advancing Data Center Sustainability research partnership with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, funding 14 faculty research projects. · source
2025-11-18announcement
QTS announced a $12 billion, up-to-1,600-acre data center campus in Dane County (Town of Vienna/DeForest), partnering with the Building Trades Council for up to 5,000 union construction jobs and pledging a $50 million community commitment. · source
2026-01-07protest
More than four hours of public comment at a packed DeForest Village Hall meeting drew opposition to the QTS annexation; a citizen petition sought to require large annexations to go to referendum. · source
2026-01-13moratorium
Madison Common Council approved a temporary one-year moratorium on zoning approvals for new data centers larger than 10,000 square feet. · source
2026-01-27report
DeForest village staff recommended the Village Board reject QTS annexation petition, concluding the data center proposal was not feasible in DeForest after QTS declined pre-annexation requirements including a 70%-renewable energy commitment. · source
2026-01-28withdrawal
QTS withdrew its data center project from consideration in the Village of DeForest following staff recommendation against annexation and sustained community opposition. · source
2026-01-28utility
Alliant Energy adjusted plans tied to the QTS Greater Madison project as the DeForest annexation collapsed, having previously committed to developing 750 MW of renewable generation. · source
2026-02-03vote
The DeForest Village Board voted unanimously 7-0 to reject QTS petition to annex nearly 1,600 acres of Town of Vienna farmland, formally ending the DeForest route for the project. · source
2026-02-12coverage
Democratic state lawmakers proposed a statewide data center moratorium bill and held a day of action, citing the DeForest/QTS fight as a driver of the broader Wisconsin data center policy debate. · source
2026-04-06moratorium
The Town of Westport (Dane County) enacted a one-year moratorium restricting new data centers to no more than 10,000 square feet, part of a wave of local moratoriums following the QTS controversy. · source
2026-05-15filing
A resolution was introduced on the Dane County Board establishing an 18-month moratorium on receiving or issuing zoning permits for hyperscale data centers in unincorporated areas. · source
2026-06-04moratorium
The Dane County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an 18-month moratorium on zoning permits for hyperscale data centers in unincorporated county areas, running until December 2027. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)

State environmental permits

Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.

Wisconsin DNR — Air ManagementThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
Search Wisconsin DNR — Air Management for this projectsearchThis state publishes no searchable permit database, so a written records request to the agency is the reliable route. Use this search only to find the right office.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

Search Dane County planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
Search Dane County property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.

Utility & grid records

The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.

MISO (Midwest & Gulf) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
Public Service Commission of Wisconsin — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.

Federal databases

Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.

EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site.
EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.

These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.

Around here

Dane County community briefing — Enactedexpires 2027-12-04
Wisconsin briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

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Project Nova (Microsoft Caledonia) — Caledonia (Racine County) Withdrawn

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “QTS Dane County”, aigridwatch.com/projects/qts-dane-county-wi, retrieved 2026-10-11.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.

Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).