Meta, Alliant Energy, & BDADC Make Case for Beaver Dam AI Data Center

Officials representing Meta, Alliant Energy, and the Beaver Dam Area Development Corporation recently participated in WBEV FM’s “Community Comment” program to address public concerns surrounding Meta's $1 billion, 700,000 square-foot artificial intelligence (AI) data center currently under construction in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Matt Sexton, Community Development Regional Manager for Meta, highlighted the facility's dry closed-loop system, designed to significantly reduce water consumption compared to traditional data centers. He stated that the Beaver Dam facility would use 8,000 gallons of water daily, not placing Meta among the city's top five water users. Sexton also reiterated Meta's commitment to cover the full energy costs of the data center. Kiley Miller, Lead Community Engagement Consultant for Data Centers at Alliant Energy, explained that the company's rates are based on fixed costs and that new infrastructure, combining natural gas, renewables, and battery storage, is being built to meet the data center's load without passing costs to other customers. The project's origins trace back to 2018 with state and local economic development agencies seeking to develop land in the Town of Trenton, which was eventually zoned industrial by Dodge County and annexed to the City of Beaver Dam in 2024. Meta became involved in late 2023, following changes in Wisconsin state law making it more favorable for large data centers. Officials also defended the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) during negotiations, a practice that has drawn criticism and is the subject of a proposed bill by State Sen. André Jacque (R-New Franken) to ban NDAs in Wisconsin. Microsoft also recently announced it would no longer use NDAs with local governments. Meta expects the Beaver Dam campus, which will be its 26th in the U.S., to be operational by 2027. Oppidan, a Minnesota developer, is also proposing a smaller edge data center for the city. These discussions followed a previous