Energy plant pinned to Milwaukee County courthouse project

By ADAM KELNHOFER

Special to The Daily Reporter

Milwaukee County‘s courthouse complex is the largest greenhouse gas emitter of all county properties – more than the zoo – but there’s now a plan to reduce that.

The courthouse complex, which includes the more-than-100-year-old courthouse, Public Safety Building and Criminal Justice Facility, is slated for construction and renovation soon, following concerns with safety and aging infrastructure. Grant Helle, director of the Offices of Sustainability & Facilities Planning, said the county plans to build its own energy source in the complex, called the Central Utility Plant, in order to reduce carbon emissions and cut costs for taxpayers.

Introduced to the complex in a step-by-step plan, the Central Utility Plant would be powered by natural gas at first. However, the county will convert it to be powered by electricity, with options open to renewables such as wind and solar power. The plant will likely be constructed in the Public Safety Building, which has been in redesign planning for several years. The county’s primary goal through this plant is to reduce emissions.

“A decision of this capacity goes beyond helping us meet our emissions reduction goals,” Helle said. “It truly really leans into the county’s obligation of fiscal responsibility to our taxpayers too.”

The county’s Climate Action 2050 Plan, adopted in 2025, set a goal of net-zero carbon emissions in county operations by 2050. Helle said the county has made significant improvement even before the plan was created, cutting carbon emissions by 48% since 2005 to roughly 108,000 metric tons last year from roughly 200,000.

Currently, the courthouse complex produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any other county facility, making up roughly 13% of all county properties. The Milwaukee County Zoo comes in at roughly 7%.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley hailed the Central Utility Plant plan as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine how public infrastructure is powered.”

“The expansive energy system positions Milwaukee County to cut emissions while reducing long-term costs, advancing our Climate Action 2050 objectives and our commitment to a more sustainable, resilient future for all residents,” he added.

While the projected overall cost of rebuilding and renovating the courthouse complex has nearly doubled to roughly $900 million from nearly $500 million, the Central Utility Plan would at least reduce the county’s utility bill.

Right now the three courthouse complex buildings have a combined annual utility bill of about $4 million, but the new plan would drop that to about $2.7 million, Helle said. Since the plan would also cut energy use by about 15%, the county would have to buy about 15% fewer renewable energy credits in 2049 to meet its net zero emissions goal too, he added.

The plan that would completely cut 117 million pounds of steam heating and cooling to the courthouse complex, reducing costs and emissions, a spokesperson at a firm working for the county said. That steam comes from the We Energies steam plant downtown, which has served hundreds of large properties in the area for well over a century.

While steam was a revolutionary idea as a utility at the turn of the 20th century, it’s outdated, expensive to maintain and less efficient than modern technology, Helle said.

“This day and age, electricity is the type of energy that is most quickly transitioning to what I would call lower carbon intensity,” he said. “Things like renewable energy through solar PV [photovoltaic] is going to leave you with electricity that’s generated from a clean source.”

The Central Utility Plant plan would happen in steps, Hell said, allowing the courthouse complex to “plug and play as we see fit, as makes financial and operational sense for us.”

“So it’s really unique that it’s a stepped, or phased, approach where we want to transition away from district steam, which is really carbon intensive, to natural gas, which is a little less carbon intensive,” he said. “And it’s still open to the flexibility for us to consider things like rooftop solar PV, potentially geothermal, or some other networked thermal energy system that could serve these buildings in the future.”

We Energies’ Valley Power Plant, the massive steam plant on Canal Street between the Milwaukee and Menomonee Rivers, currently uses two natural gas turbines to produce up to 1.25 million pounds of steam per hour and requires over 100,000 gallons of river water every minute for cooling. The water is returned to the river, according to WE Energies.

Helle said the Central Utility Plant design would initially use less carbon-intensive natural gas boilers and chillers, and the plan gives the county flexibility to add more environmentally-friendly options in the future.

AECOM, NORR and Continuum are working as design consultants on the courthouse complex, but Helle said so far the county has not selected anyone to carry out the Central Utility Plant construction.