On Thursday, the Minnesota Rural Electric Association joined utilities, elected officials and businesses across the country in signing the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, an initiative focused on ensuring the costs associated with new data center development are not shifted to existing electric consumers. The pledge calls for large energy users to pay for the power generation and infrastructure needed to serve their facilities while supporting reliability, affordability and economic growth.
The pledge aligns with long-standing electric cooperative principles that large new loads should cover the costs associated with serving their electricity needs and should not shift costs onto existing consumer-members. Darrick Moe, President and CEO of the Minnesota Rural Electric Association, released the following statement.
“The Minnesota Rural Electric Association supports the principles behind the Ratepayer Protection Pledge because they put electric consumers first.
More about the pledge…
The Ratepayer Protection Pledge includes commitments for data center developers and technology companies to build, bring or buy the new power resources needed to serve their facilities, pay for new transmission and distribution infrastructure required to connect those facilities, negotiate rate structures that ensure they pay for dedicated resources whether they use the electricity or not, invest in local communities and workforce development, and coordinate with grid operators to support reliability and grid resilience.
The pledge is intended to support continued economic development and data center growth while protecting households and businesses from increased electricity costs.