WEC Energy Group

Milwaukee street railway and electric companies consolidated by Henry Villard in the 1880s entered receivership in 1890 and emerged on January 29, 1896, as the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company.⁠[1]

In 1938, the company was renamed Wisconsin Electric Power Co. In 1970, the Point Beach Nuclear Plant began operation.⁠[2]

In 1947, North American spun off Wisconsin Electric Power to its shareholders.⁠[1]

The company was incorporated in Wisconsin in 1981 and became a diversified holding company in 1986.⁠[3]

In 1990, R.A. Abdoo succeeded Charles S. McNeer as chief executive officer.⁠[1]

In April 2000, Wisconsin Energy completed its acquisition of Wicor, Inc., the parent of Wisconsin Gas.⁠[1]

In 2002, Wisconsin Electric and Wisconsin Gas began operating under the We Energies name.⁠[2]

In May 2004, Gale E. Klappa became chairman and chief executive officer.⁠[4]

In 2004, Wisconsin Energy sold WICOR Industries for $850 million. In 2007, the Point Beach Nuclear Plant was sold to FPL Energy for about $924 million.⁠[2]

Wisconsin Energy announced a $9.1 billion cash, stock and assumed-debt deal to acquire Integrys Energy Group, giving the combined company 60 percent of American Transmission Co.⁠[5]

Klappa said: “We believe this combination provides a unique opportunity to create the premier regulated utility system in the Midwest.”⁠[5]

On June 29, 2015, the company acquired Integrys and changed its name to WEC Energy Group, Inc.⁠[3]

The combined company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WEC, serving 4.4 million electric and natural gas customers in four states, with Klappa as chairman and CEO. Integrys shareholders received 1.128 Wisconsin Energy shares and $18.58 in cash per share.⁠[6]

On December 16, 2015, the Illinois Commerce Commission suspended Peoples Gas’s Accelerated Main Replacement Program for review. Initially projected at $2.2 billion, its cost estimates had risen to more than $8 billion.⁠[7]

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan accused the companies of withholding the rising costs to win merger approval. Klappa indicated company leaders did not know before the acquisition.⁠[7]

Klappa retired on May 1, 2016, and then served as non-executive chairman. On October 12, 2017, after chief executive Allen Leverett was hospitalized following an apparent stroke, the board appointed Klappa as interim chief executive officer.⁠[4]

In November 2017, Klappa was reappointed to the CEO position full-time.⁠[8]

In 2016, the company sold Trillium CNG to Love’s Travel Stops, and in 2017 it acquired Bluewater Gas Storage in Michigan.⁠[2]

In October 2018, Leverett, on medical leave since his stroke, stepped down as president while remaining on the board. Kevin Fletcher succeeded him as president.⁠[8]

On January 17, 2019, the board appointed Fletcher president and chief executive officer effective February 1, 2019. Klappa agreed to serve as executive chairman for three years.⁠[9]

On October 21, 2021, the board appointed Scott Lauber, senior executive vice president and chief operating officer, who joined the company in 1990, to succeed Fletcher as president and CEO effective February 1, 2022. Fletcher, planning to retire in June 2022, became a senior adviser. Klappa was to remain executive chairman until May 2024.⁠[10]

The Illinois Commerce Commission paused Peoples Gas’s System Modernization Program in 2023 and opened an investigation in early 2024. On February 20, 2025, it replaced the program with a directive to retire high-risk cast iron and ductile iron pipes by 2035, and created a Safety Monitor.⁠[11]

In April 2025, We Energies asked state regulators to approve special rates making customers with loads of at least 500 megawatts responsible for the cost of new resources built for them. The proposal was crafted with MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft is a technology company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, with businesses spanning Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, gaming and devices.Open the full entry, which was building a $3.3 billion data center campus in Mount Pleasant.⁠[12]

A June 2025 investor update said Vantage planned to develop a large data center campus in Port Washington, with site potential of up to 3.5 GW over time.⁠[13]

Its principal subsidiaries include We Energies, Wisconsin Public Service, Peoples Gas, North Shore Gas, Minnesota Energy Resources, Michigan Gas Utilities, Upper Michigan Energy Resources and Bluewater Gas Storage.⁠[14]

In 2025, operating revenues were $9,800.1 million and net income attributed to common shareholders $1,557.5 million, or $4.81 per diluted share, including a 46-cent-per-share charge for a proposed settlement with the Illinois Attorney General over the QIP rider. The company served 4.7 million customers in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota and had about 7,000 employees.⁠[15]

On April 24, 2026, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin approved We Energies’ data center tariffs after materially rewriting them, lowering the threshold from 500 MW to 100 MW, extending the minimum term from 10 to 15 years, and requiring revisions to address transmission cost shifting.⁠[16]