Wisconsin Public Service Corporation
Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (WPS) is a utility company headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The company serves more than 440,000 electric customers and more than 315,000 natural gas customers in 27 counties in eastern, northeastern northern, and central Wisconsin, and a small portion of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
WPS began in 1883 as the Oshkosh Gas Light Company. It was incorporated as Wisconsin Public Service in 1922. And it was first listed on the New York and Midwest stock exchanges in 1953. In 1994, WPS became a subsidiary of WPS Resources Corporation, an energy holding company. In February 2007, WPS Resources Corporation became Integrys Energy Group. A detailed history of the company can be found at .
WPS owns two coal, and one natural gas power generation plants. It also owns 15 hydroelectric power plants on the Wisconsin, Tomahawk, Peshtigo and Menominee rivers, and a wind farm in northeastern Iowa. The Weston Power Plant is coal-fired power plant rated at 981 megawatts and is located near Wausau, Wisconsin. The Weston 4 unit was built in 2008 and is considered to be one of the cleanest coal-fired power plants in the country. J. P. Pulliam Generating Station is also a coal-fired generating plant with a capacity of 375-megawatt and is located near downtown Green Bay at the mouth of the Fox River. The Fox Energy Center is the company's most recent acquisition (2012). It is a natural gas–fired power plant, has a capacity of nearly 500 megawatts and is located near Kaukauna, Wisconsin.
The company's transmission voltages are 69,000 volts, 115,000 volts, 138,000 volts and 345,000 volts. WPS also has a few sub-transmission lines operating at 46,000 volts. The 115KV and 46KV lines are mostly used in the western part of Wisconsin Public Service's service area in the Wausau-Stevens point area. WPS mostly uses 24,900/14,400 volts as its distribution voltage, however, 12,470/7,200 volts systems can be found in a few rural areas. WPS is interconnected on the power grid to Minnesota Power in Duluth, Minnesota via the Arrowhead-Weston 345,000 volt line and to Xcel Energy via the Arpin-Rocky 345,000-volt line.
See also
Further reading
- Wisconsin Public Service Corporation: A History 1869–1950. Privately published: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 1950.