An environmental group has submitted a lawsuit against Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC), demanding that it reveal electrical load projections for Meta’s planned AI data center in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

Midwest Environmental Advocates argued that the PSC is “unlawfully withholding this information because either Meta or a public utility is claiming the electricity demand for the data center is a trade secret,” MEA legal fellow Michael Greif said in a statement.

“We call on Alliant Energy, American Transmission Company, and Meta to be forthright with the public about their plans. These companies are asking a lot of the public, and the public deserves, at least the very least, basic information about the data center’s massive energy needs.”

The data center, which was officially announced in November, is expected to cost approximately $1 billion.

The campus will span more than 700,000 sq ft (65,032 sqm) and be optimized for AI workloads. Groundwork has reportedly already begun, with operations expected to commence in 2027.

Beaver Dam is a city in Dodge County, along Beaver Dam Lake and the Beaver Dam River, around 65 miles northwest of Milwaukee.

News that Meta was targeting a development in Beaver Dam surfaced in April. It is the company’s first campus in the state.

The Wisconsin PSC recently released electrical load information for a planned 1.3GW data center in Port Washington, but has refused to divulge the same information for the proposed Beaver Dam project.

“This lawsuit is about making sure Wisconsin residents have access to the critical information they need to understand and evaluate the impacts of the fast-growing data center industry,” Greif said.

“Keeping the public in the dark about data centers and the amount of water and energy they will use deprives Wisconsinites of the transparency they deserve.”

Meta has around 30 data center campuses in operation or development globally. The company recently announced plans to invest $600 billion in its data center buildout.