We Energies plans new gas-fired power plant to meet growing demand in southeast Wisconsin

We Energies hopes to build a new natural gas-fired power plant in Kenosha County, the utility arguing the project is critical to meeting increasing demand from industry in southeast Wisconsin.

The project is projected to produce up to about 590,000 tons in greenhouse gas emissions annually.

The plan to build a new roughly $300 million gas plant in the town of Paris is part of a planned $2 billion investment in natural gas infrastructure by We Energies. The biggest chunk of that is a $1.2 billion project to transition the Elm Road Generating station at the company’s Oak Creek site from coal to natural gas.

Those projects, along with a 33-mile natural gas pipeline in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties,…