The Pulse
ATC Grid Delays Put Oracle’s Wisconsin AI Target at Risk
Aterio estimates Oracle’s Project Lighthouse in Port Washington may receive partial grid power in December 2027, after Oracle’s customer-delivery target begins. Oracle announced a separate plan to subscribe to electricity from Wisconsin’s P
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
Partial power may arrive after Oracle’s target
December 2027 is Aterio’s base-case estimate for when Oracle’s planned Wisconsin AI campus could first receive partial grid power—after Oracle’s stated target to begin customer delivery in the second half of 2027. The research firm estimates full power for the campus, up to 1.3 gigawatts, may not arrive until October 2028. A longer regulatory review could push those milestones to June 2028 and April 2029, respectively.
The campus, known as Project Lighthouse, is being developed by Vantage in Port Washington, with Oracle as its tenant. Its four data center buildings are not the immediate bottleneck: the project’s connection to the electricity grid depends on new transmission infrastructure that cannot be built until Wisconsin regulators approve it. The projections come from Aterio’s report, dated September 29, which reviewed filings through September 24.
“We therefore expect the campus’s load to ramp up mainly from the first quarter of 2028,” Aterio Research Team, Project Lighthouse report writes. The estimate accounts for the work that follows the arrival of electricity: each building’s electrical and cooling systems must be energized, tested and commissioned before it can serve customer computing loads.
A fresh application restarts the approval process
American Transmission Company, or ATC, needs approval from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin to build the connection. ATC first applied in September 2025. After reviewing the filing for months, the commission withdrew its finding that the application was complete in August 2026 and closed the case on September 10. ATC filed a new application on September 18, restarting the review.
Aterio’s base case assumes the commission finds the new application complete by about October 19 and rules within its first 180-day decision period. Under that scenario, construction begins in 2027, partial power follows around December, and the full transmission project comes online roughly ten months later. The earliest modeled scenario—partial power in October 2027 and full supply in August 2028—requires a much faster regulatory decision; Aterio describes it as highly unlikely.
The extended-review estimate reflects a further six months of regulatory time. Aterio says the commission has extended the review period in comparable transmission cases it examined. If the new application is found incomplete again, the projected dates could move later still.
Oracle’s new power commitment does not settle the grid question
Oracle’s public target remains customer delivery in the second half of 2027. In a September 16 post, Julia Robin, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s head of infrastructure planning and sourcing, said the company’s commitment to completing Project Lighthouse “remains unchanged.” Oracle’s data-center page also lists Port Washington customer delivery as expected in the second half of 2027.
On October 2, Oracle announced a plan to subscribe to a portion of electricity from the existing Point Beach Nuclear Plant. The company said the arrangement could save Wisconsin utility customers about $300 million in fuel costs, and said it would fully fund Project Lighthouse’s energy costs. The planned subscription still requires Public Service Commission approval.
That announcement addresses how Oracle says it will pay for energy and support the state’s power system; it does not replace ATC’s proposed grid connection or resolve its regulatory timetable. For the campus, the near-term test is whether the commission accepts the refiled application as complete. Aterio’s review put no completeness decision on the docket as of September 24, and its projected service dates depend on what regulators decide next.