The Midway Monitor posts a column from James Birr of the Citizens Utility Board…

Data centers are top of mind for Minnesotans, and two proposed projects from Google continue to cause controversy: the Pine Island data center and the Hermantown data center. Just this month, Google has made its projected energy use public. Minnesotans finally have a sense of how much electricity these two projects will need to operate, and it’s a massive amount.
The Pine Island data center will require 780 megawatts (MW) of electricity, and the Hermantown data center will require 500 MW. To put that into perspective, a general rule of thumb is that 100 MW can power about 80,000 typical American homes. These data centers’ combined need for 1280 MW of electricity is roughly equal to the power use of more than 1 million households. That’s almost half the total number of households in Minnesota.

How these data centers will receive, generate, and pay for that electricity is determined by utility tariffs and electric service agreements (ESAs) between the company and the utility serving it. The Hermantown data center will be served by Minnesota Power, and the Pine Island data center will be served by Xcel Energy. These agreements are complicated, and have been used to withhold important information from the public. Even after signing non-disclosure agreements, CUB does not have full access to all the information we’d need to properly review Google’s ESA with Xcel.
Nevertheless, CUB’s team has reviewed the proposed electric service agreements and we’ve concluded that what’s been proposed would fail to comply with Minnesota law and fall short of covering the data centers’ costs. CUB has filed this analysis with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, along with our recommendations of how Google’s utility contracts must change so that ratepayers aren’t left covering its costs.
This article covers the latest regulatory updates regarding Google’s proposed data center projects in Hermantown and Pine Island. To get a full picture of how data centers could impact Minnesota ratepayers, visit CUB’s Data Center page below.