Data centers in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Kewaunee County's data center prospect ended in a handshake. The developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure had looked at land in the town of Carlton, home of the shuttered Kewaunee Power Station on Lake Michigan, a county where cattle outnumber people by nearly 5 to 1. In late 2025 it dropped the idea after residents opposed it, Cloverleaf and town officials told Wisconsin Watch in January 2026. "The town chairperson said, 'I don't support data centers. I don't think this is a good fit,'" said Cloverleaf's chief development officer, Aaron Bilyeu. "We shook hands and said 'thank you.'" Town Chairman David Hardtke, who had pushed back for months, put it plainly: "People in the town of Carlton do not want the AI (data) center." Cloverleaf also dropped a proposal in Greenleaf, in neighboring Brown County, after an outcry, and Bilyeu said the company was still looking for a site in northeast Wisconsin. "We're not the only ones looking for data center sites in the area," he said.

Carlton's position is shaped by the power plant it hopes to get back. The Kewaunee station closed in 2013, and the town had run its budget off its utility taxes, Hardtke told WPR. Its owner, EnergySolutions, has filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to bring new nuclear generation to the site, with construction not expected before the early 2030s. Hardtke supports it, since spent fuel already sits on the property, but not what might follow. "They're just crawling out of the woodwork right now, trying to eat up the farmland," he said of developers. "If Carlton is hosting the power plant, we don't have to host everything, so they can locate their Cloverleaf and other data centers someplace else," he told Spectrum News. Not everyone agreed: resident Dan Giannotti told Wisconsin Watch the county had stagnated since the plant closed and that an employer like that would bring new homes and businesses.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.