Data Centers 2026 09 09

Uh thanks for joining us for our first educational series on regarding data centers and um zoning for data centers. I truly appreciate you taking the time to be here whether that is in person or virtually. Your willingness to learn along with us about this topic is being and and being engaged in shaping our community's future is deeply valued. My name is Alonza. I am currently serving as the chair of the committee of the whole. While this is not a committee of the whole meeting, the committee of the whole is responsible for overseeing and exploring topics the council is interested in, such as how best to address emerging industries like data centers within our zoning code regulations. This educational series reflects the council's commitment to building a clear and shared understanding of data centers, their purpose, and their impact. As many of you already know, this series was requested by the council. The request emerged from discussions pertaining to updating our zoning code. The last comprehensive update to our zoning code occurred in 1996, and our world has changed so much since then. Our zoning code needs to evolve accordingly. Zoning is one of the fundamental guard rails that supports responsible development. Before considering any update, the council wants to better understand data centers so we can create zoning regulations that are effective, practical, and provide meaning meaningful guidance. We are approaching this all proactively. Our goal tonight for the entire series is ed education and gaining knowledge we need to develop strong informed policy. Following the series, the council will convene as as the committee of the whole to discuss the issues identified throughout these sessions. Before we begin, I'd like to quickly review a few ground rules for tonight's session. If you have a question, please write it on one of the note cards provided and place it in the collection area near the older persons. If you need assistance getting your card there or you'd like another note card, simply raise your hand and a volunteer will help. Questions will be grouped by topic so we can cover as much ground as possible. Your question may be combined with others that are similar. For everyone's comfort and safety, please keep aisles clear throughout the event. If you brought a sign, we kindly ask that you avoid, we got to do this legal stuff, displaying it in the seated area so everyone has an unobstructed view. You're welcome to stand in the back of the room with your sign. Please allow the speakers to share their information without interruption. Our speakers are generously volunteering their time. If the environment becomes disruptive or unsafe, they may pause or conclude their participation. Thank you for helping us maintain a respectful and welcoming atmosphere. Now that we've covered the ground rules, I'm excited to introduce our first speaker and this is Becky Bach. Becky brings decades of experience in the energy sector. She joined Allian Energy in 2024 and currently serves as the president. Before that, she served as the chairperson of the public service commission of Wisconsin and worked in legal practice focused on energy, environmental and regulatory matters. Her extensive background provides a strong foundation of knowledge and insight and we are grateful to have her here with you us. Please join me in wel welcoming Becky V. Thank you. Hello everybody. Thanks for having me. Um, I'm happy to be here on behalf of Allian Energy, but I just want to kind of lay the groundwork first. So, as was noted in the intro, I've been in this industry since 1999. And so, I've seen a lot. I've experienced a lot. Um, and what we are seeing in the electric industry in particular with the explosion of load growth, particularly as it relates to data centers, is something that not a lot of us who have been in the industry for that long, we've not seen that. We were used to flat or declining load growth for decades. So, a lot of the questions that you have, a lot of the questions that I hear when I'm out talking to community members, to economic development officials, to our customers, um we share those same questions. And so, I want to commit to you all that I will be as transparent as possible. I will endeavor to answer all of your questions because that's why I'm here. I'm not here on behalf of any particular customer. I want to make that really clear, too. As an electric provider, we don't get to choose who our customers are. Under Wisconsin law, we have an obligation to serve. So, everybody who picks up the phone and says, "I want to build a manufacturing facility in your service area. I want to build a new foundry in your service area. I want to bring onshore manufacturing back to Wisconsin in your service territory. We have the legal obligation to look into whether or not we have enough electricity to provide to that customer. So I want to make it clear, we don't get to pick and choose who our customers are. So if there are questions specific to the data center industry, those questions have to be answered by data center hyperscalers or data center developers. That's not our role at Allian Energy. Our role is the provision of safe, reliable, and cost-effective electricity and gas. And where we do that, we operate in Wisconsin and in Iowa. What makes us unique from other utilities, especially in Wisconsin, is the nature of our service area. So while Alliant Energy covers about 44% geographically of the state of Wisconsin, we only have about half a million customers. So what does that mean? That means that the infrastructure that is required to provide electricity and natural gas to our customers, that infrastructure, those costs, the poles, the wires, the pipes, the transformers, the substations, all of that infrastructure is necessary. But for us at Alliant, it's more spread out. So our service territory is predominantly rural. It is why at Alliant we have made an incredible investment in both wind and solar. Why? Well, for a midsize utility like us to be in the top five of regulated owner operator of both solar and wind takes a lot of investment, but that investment pays off in the form of zero fuel costs. So over time, customer bills, the c the part of your bill that is calculated based on the cost of fuel will go down because there's no fuel cost associated with the wind or the sun. So it's really important for us to be constantly looking at ways and how to drive costs down. And you can see in 2024 about 44% of our energy was produced by renewable sources. How does it work? I think this is really important too as I go around the state and I talk to different to different groups. It's really important to ground everybody in how things work in Wisconsin. And then if you zoom out a little bit, you talk about how things work in the MYSO region. So if you're reading the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal and you read an article about prices going up 60% 70% 120% in PJM, which is Virginia, Maryland, the Carolas, that's a different market. That's a different energy market. That's the energy market that we are in in Wisconsin. So in Wisconsin, we are part of MYSO, the mid-continent independent system operator. And what that means is MYSO essentially acts like an air traffic controller. So if you think of all the power plants that are online in 15 Midwestern states plus the province of Manitoba in Canada, all of the power in that entire region. They're controlled by MYSO. Think of MYSO as an air traffic controller with all of our different uh generating facilities, whether that's wind, solar, battery, coal, natural gas, those are all being dispatched synchronously around the clock every second of every minute of every hour, 365 days a year. It's being managed by MYSO. The difference between us in Wisconsin in MYSO and PJM is who owns the power plants. Within MYSO, we Alliant Energy, we own our own power plants. So, we control how we bid those power plants into the market. So we generate the electricity from our power plants and it goes out onto the transmission system. Transmission system is owned and controlled by the American transmission company. It also is owned in part by all of the utilities in Wisconsin that had to contribute transmission assets to American transmission company. Back in the 90s, there was a threat of brownouts and blackouts. And the state legislature passed a law that said in order for utilities to control more of the prices that they charge for electricity, we're going to require that they divest themselves of all the transmission equipment. So, back up until the late 90s, all the utilities in Wisconsin still owned their own transmission. We do not own transmission anymore. So, we're generating electricity, we're putting it out onto the transmission system. Then it's hitting substations which adjust the voltage. So you want to step it up when it's coming out of the power plant because you want it to move and you want it to move quickly to eliminate or mitigate the level of line losses. So as electricity travels, it loses some of its some of its steam. You lose some of the electrons. Those are called line losses. So you want to step up the voltage as high as you can to make sure that the electrons are going where they need to go. Another important distinction, we do not assign certain power plants to certain customers. We serve all of our customers utilizing our entire portfolio of generation. So every single customer of ours is getting a slice of that system. So they're getting energy produced by wind, solar, coal, gas, and then they're getting the benefit of either discharging or charging battery energy storage systems that are that are that are part of our portfolio. The final step is once the electrons get to where they need to be, they're stepped down so that they can be delivered safely to people's homes and businesses. Why this matters is because it impacts the price that that is paid. Our role whether it's a data center, a foundry, a a manufacturing company, a hospital, a school, a church. Our role is to make sure that we have the appropriate infrastructure to provide service to that facility. That's our role. Now, going back to where I started about the rural, more spread out nature of our service territory at Alliant Energy, our approach has been we want to attract new customers to our service area because we want to spread those costs over the greatest number of customers possible. Like I said in the beginning, we have to pay for the infrastructure regardless. We if people want to continue to have electricity and gas, we have to continue to produce it, distribute it, get it to the transmission system, and then be on the other side of the transmission system to get it into homes and businesses. That takes infrastructure. And because that infrastructure is so capital intensive, that's why the legislature passed the law regulating public utilities. So Wisconsin was the first state in the country to say, "We're not going to let utility companies unilaterally set their rates. We're going to create a public service commission to oversee and to set the rates to set the provisions of service that the utility has to follow. And in exchange for that, we're going to tell utilities, you're allowed to exclusively provide service to this area of the state, and you utility B are allowed to provide utility service to this part of the state. and that was to prevent utilities from going out and overbuilding and then neglecting other parts of the state. So the logic behind it was because it's so expensive to build power plants to build the poles and the the wires, the lines, the all of the equipment that it takes. Because that's so expensive, we don't want all the investment going into just the densely populated parts of our state. Why that's important is because again we have to pay for the infrastructure regardless. So if we're going to have a $1,000 worth of costs that we are responsible for every month, it is beneficial to our customers to spread that $1,000 over a greater number than a than a lesser number. So I would rather pay 1,000th of that then I would want to pay 50 50s, right? So, you're growing the denominator. That's why at Alliant Energy, we are very bullish on trying to attract new customers to the area that we serve. Yes, some of those customers are data centers. It's true. We have we have um one in Wisconsin. It is not fully operational. It's in Beaver Dam. That's the one data center customer we have in Wisconsin and then we have two in Iowa uh both in Cedar Rapids. So our experience is relatively new with the larger hyperscalers, but I will tell you that we have other customers that have owned and operated data centers for more than 20 years because Wisconsin has been home to hundreds of data centers for a very very long time. Why does this matter? So it matters for us and again I'm speaking from alliance point of view. If you ask representatives from other utility companies, you might get a different answer. But the way that we approach it at Alliant is we want to be able to to spread those fixed costs across more users. And ultimately what we have structured our contracts to do is to bring in more revenue from those large load customers than the cost. we bear to serve them. We're not allowed to do that with other customers. We're not allowed to do that with other customers because we have to charge every customer a rate that is specific to their customer class. So in fixing utility rates and the amount that utilities are able to charge, Wisconsin has followed a costcausation model since the day it was founded in 1907. And what cost causation is is it looks at the system. It looks at all of the costs that the utility has and then it looks at the different types of customers. There's residential, there's small commercial, there's bigger commercial, and then there's large industrial users. And every single class of customer behaves a different way. They consume electricity in a different way, which is why it's up to the regulator to sit back and look at the costs and assign them appropriately. So when we talk about data centers and how are we how are we making sure that all the rest of our customers are protected from the costs that they bring. Our approach is simple. They have to pay for what they use. So the perfect example in Beaver Dam is they required a new substation. Because they required a new substation that cost was passed on to that customer. We put that in front of the public service commission. The public service commission reviewed our filing, reviewed thousands of comments. There were all sorts of opportunities for public input and ultimately the commission made changes made changes to what we had provided in an effort to further protections for our existing customers. The reason we can do that with large load customers versus residential customer or a commercial customer is because we negotiated a contract with the hyperscaler. And the reason we negotiated the contract with the hyperscaler is because we wanted to make sure that any piece of infrastructure that that large load customer was going to need, we wanted to make sure that they paid for it. not only that they paid for the infrastructure, but that they're helping to fund investments that would otherwise need to be done on the system. The system doesn't last forever. As a general rule, it's about a 40year lifespan for generating facilities, most generating facilities. And then poles, depending on the material that they're made from, the wires, can range anywhere between 20 years, 70 years. some we have on the system that we've had for more than 70 years, but they don't last forever. So, we keep coming back to we are in a position of having to constantly reinvest in the system so that reliability and resilience don't change. That's our job as the utility company. So, we want to make sure that existing customers are protected because we heard it. We hear it all the time. Don't let the data setters come because they're going to drive up my electricity price. And I'm telling you that there are there are studies that have been done by independent groups that show if done correctly, and I'm not going to make any absolute statements because I know for for every statement that I make or that you make, somebody can come up with an example to the contrary. I get it. I've been a lawyer for a long time. But what I will tell you is that there have been studies done by independent companies that demonstrate with data looking across the country if done correctly and if priced properly areas that have large load data centers actually have had the impact of lowering prices. In the case of Iowa, and I can tell you that this is true because we're living it. Like I said, we have two data centers in Iowa. We have committed to holding base electric rates flat through the end of the decade. There aren't a lot of places that you can go where the electric the electric utility will say, "We're not going to go in and ask for an increase in rates for the next five years. We are able to do that because of the terms that we negotiated with those hyperscalers because we are bringing in revenues that are more than sufficient to offset our costs. So that's our approach. That's why we feel it's one of the best levers we have when we talk about affordability because again we have to maintain our infrastructure no matter what. If we don't do that that's table stakes that's our bread and butter. If we don't maintain our infrastructure then reliability goes down resilience goes down. And I don't know if I'm the only one who's noticed this, but when I started in the late 90s, what we would what we referred to as resilience had to do with storm events. And those storm events were high impact but low frequency. You weren't having hundred-year storms every year. That's not the case anymore. So, as we are faced with increasing storm events, we know what's most important is that we're keeping the lights on or that when an event occurs, we're restoring it as quickly as possible to the extent that we can keep the cost of doing that as low as possible. That's a win-win. That's a win-win for us because when our communities are thriving and attracting private investment, that's good for us because the meters are spinning because we're getting more we're getting more customers. We are all aligned in wanting to keep the lights on and wanting to make sure that prices are as low as possible. So for us, we look at economic development as a way to help control costs and ultimately the impact on our customers. We've seen in the areas that we have had large load customers come online that there are benefits, tangible benefits. When the tax base grows, that allows a to make investments and to face fewer I'm not going to say it eliminates but to face fewer tough choices on what to fund within a community when communities have access to increased tax base that's better for the school system it's better for police for fire so part of what we have seen especially in Cedar Rapids it's 11 billion dollar investment that the customer is making in Cedar Rapids. It's the largest single investment in the state of Iowa. And the list of improvements and of funding opportunities that the city of Cedar Rapids has because of that is is pretty breathtaking. So while there are certainly questions and it's not for every community, but I will applaud Shboen for having this type of a forum to answer questions because we're only going to learn if we ask questions and if we're willing to have difficult conversations and if we're also willing to see what worked in one community and what didn't work. The facility in Beaver Dam. The the the customer of ours made a commitment that not only were they going to restore the wetlands, but they were actually going to deed additional wetlands to Beaver Dam. They're also increasing the contribution to our state's energy efficiency program, focus on energy, which all customers benefit from. residential customers, commercial customers, industrial customers. So that state fund focus on energy is funded by all of us. A portion of our bill every month goes to fund focus on energy. What we negotiated with the large load customer because it's based on a percentage of your bill was we said you're going to write that check to focus on energy every month. you're not going to get an exemption. And they agreed. Those are meaningful dollars going to an already established statewide fund that is used to help install energy efficiency equipment across all parts of the state of Wisconsin. I mentioned our the power plants that we have. We believe in all of the above. We're looking at everything. Um, like I mentioned, we have solar and wind. We're top five producer of both solar and wind in the entire country. We've got natural gas facilities. We just had a liqufied natural gas plant approved last week. We have coal facilities. We still have two coal facilities remaining in Wisconsin. Um, and we're always having discussions about nuclear. We're also always having discussions about what's the next technology that is technically feasible and cost effective. So we are constantly looking at ways to squeeze every single megawatt that we can out of our existing facilities. And then we are scanning and looking to see what is the next most coste effective way to produce electricity and where can we site that facility. That's something that happens all the time. It never stops. And it's not because data centers have all of the sudden appeared. It's because we're the grid, the electric grid. Think of it as the largest synchronous machine in the world. It is constantly balancing supply and demand by the nancond at a certain hertz level so that reliability isn't impacted. We take that responsibility seriously because If we're not constantly looking at our supply and our demand, that impacts reliability. And like I said, reliability for us is table stakes. We can't attract new customers. When I go out and I talk with the owners of companies, the number one thing they say is the biggest input to where whether I'm going to stay here or move out move my facility out of state is reliability because I can't afford to take a line off. I can't afford to shut down a shift if I'm going to have to worry about reliability. That costs real money. So we can't afford to lose sight of reliability and we firmly believe that to the extent that we can attract more customers to our system that's going to help the system overall to the extent that medic and they required additional facilities they're paying for those facilities directly but all of us are benefiting because those are fewer poles and wires that we have to replace on our dime. And it's not our dime, it's our customer's money, right? We're not like other businesses where it's traditional supply and demand. We're not like Kohl's where we can say we need to move product, so we're going to give out a bunch of Kohl's cash. That's not the way our business model works. We have to attract money from investors and we recover dollars from our customers. So, we are stewards of other people's money because we're not selling widgets. What we're doing is we are maintaining and operating infrastructure that is part of a system to make sure that we are reliably and cost-effectively delivering electricity and gas. That's what we're doing. There's a lot of talk about transparency. Um, we faced a lot of criticism in the Beaver Dam case where people said, "You weren't transparent. Everything was redacted." Uh, the judge had us remove redactions and refile things publicly. We did that. We complied. I will tell you, it's one of the lessons learned, right? I mean, if you talk to economic development professionals, people that do economic development for a living, people at the state, they'll tell you a lot of initial conversations are kept confidential because of market competition concerns. It's a lesson learned. We learned our lesson. And we just filed last week a standard large load tariff where now anybody can go and see this is exactly what we are proposing. So, for any new large load customer that comes into Alliant Energy Service Territory in Wisconsin, you can go on the commission's website and you'll be able to see what we proposed because we learned, we understand. And we've also learned that if you don't fill the space, if you don't answer questions, if you don't make yourself available, that space gets filled. And a lot of times it gets filled with misinformation. So then we're having to do a lot of backtracking and we're having to do a lot of revisiting and starting over. But we're but we're learning. We're learning as we're going. And again, I'll go back to where I started at the beginning. We don't have a choice who our customers are. I can't I can't say no, we don't want to serve you because XYZ fill in the blank for whatever reason. We don't have that luxury. We're a provider of last resort. Wisconsin state law says we have an obligation to provide our services to customers who come into our service area. We take that commitment really seriously. We have a a website dedicated solely to data centers. Again, trying to answer the frequently asked questions that we hear. I've heard from a lot of angry people. I've heard from a lot of emotional people. And I understand it's an emotional topic. In nearly 30 years in this industry, I've never seen anything like it. When I first started and I told people that I worked for an electric company, their eyes would gloss over and it was like, I don't that's black magic. You just flip the switch and there it is. We are finding ourselves as an industry with very bright lights being shown down upon us. And I will tell you, as an industry, we're not used to that. We're a lot of engineers. We're a lot of accountants, lawyers, line mechanics, distribution workers, meter readers. So, we're not used to being thrust in the public spotlight. But I will say this, we also have an immense source of pride about what we do. providing electricity and gas to homes, churches, hospitals, schools, businesses. That's an incredible privilege. An incredible privilege. It's also an incredible responsibility. And it's a responsibility that we take seriously. We also know that because we're a monopoly, we don't rank really high on the trust meter. And I get that. And I've been on all sides of it. And sometimes people try to use that against me. I actually wear it as a badge of honor because I've sat on all sides of the table because I feel so passionately about this industry. There is nothing more foundational to economic success than the provision of electricity and gas. Ask a business owner who has lost their electricity for a week, two weeks. Ask the governor of Indiana how the folks in Gary felt going without power. It's a real real responsibility, but it comes along with a great privilege and a great source of pride to be able to say that we are helping to drive economic advancement and we're helping our communities thrive. That's really our commitment. Our commitment is to serve our customers and to help build stronger communities and I take that commitment very seriously. So I thank you for coming here. I thank you for listening with an open mind. Uh and then I will pause here to see if there are questions. Okay. So if if you can all bring your questions forward if you haven't already so that we can coate those that would be greatly appreciated. We'll we'll pause for just a couple of minutes. The questions are all going to be asked by me to Becky. I can appreciate that everybody's really passionate about this issue. I can appreciate everybody's um willingness to be here, to attend, to listen to our speaker. We purposely have chosen to collect all the questions that are being provided because certainly there are going to be repetitive questions. So if you have questions, you're welcome to fill out a note card, hand it in, and we will start asking those questions. If you if you prefer not to, that's okay. But we are coalating questions right now so we can ask those and everybody can get answers. testing. >> Okay. If I just do this this So, in the interest of time, everybody, we're going to go ahead and get started with the questions. For those of you guys who may not know who I am, I'm Susie Boris, um, Alder for District 5. I'm also council president. Um, so I'll be handling the Q&A session. Um, and we'll go ahead and get started. Um, Becky, our first question. If Alliant were talking with a large load customer interested in Shbboen County, at what point would the city and the public know about it? >> That's a good question. Uh, and it depends. Sometimes a developer comes to us after they've had discussions with the municipality. Other times developers call us and ask if we know of any areas within our service territory that have developable developable land. So really it really depends. It could be that they've already had conversations with the local government and now they're coming to us to ask if we have the electricity or they could come to us and say if you have available capacity on your system can you point us to what areas those are. Thank you for that. Next question. If Alliant were to build infrastructure based on a customer requesting 200 or 300 megawws and that demand never actually materializes, what financial protections keep the rest of us from being left with that bill? >> Termination fees first and foremost. And then we also have early exit fees. So the way that we calculate the termination fee is by actually calculating the cost of the infrastructure. If that's a 200 or 300 megawatt plant, we do that calculation that goes into the calculation of the termination fee and then we add on uh dollars in addition to that. In 2020, Alliant announced the Edgewater plant would be decommissioned in 2022. In 2022, it announced that retirement would be delayed until 2025. In 2024, it announced that Edgewater would be converted into a natural gas plant in 2028. In addition to the extended coal burning years, it seems that the Edgewater plant isn't leaving anytime soon. What are the reasons for these decisions and how is it related to anticipated future demands? Have anticipated demands changed? So for Edgewater and Colombia, we have actually committed to keeping those facilities open and running on coal through 2029. We are exploring what, if anything, to do with those plants after 2029. >> We are keeping Edgewater and Colombia running until 2029. We have not made any decisions on whether or not to convert those power plants. And the reason for that is for a number of different reasons. First and foremost, reliability. As we bring on more intermittent resources like wind and solar, it has become abundantly clear from a physics perspective that we need to keep base load generating units operating in order to ensure reliability. So from a physics perspective, we know that we need we need to continue to have base load generating units as part of our generation portfolio. We're making investments in batteries which will help. We have a long duration energy storage system in Colombia County that's being built that that we are hopeful will help with the intermittency. It's a reliability issue. It's al it was also a cost issue and WPR did a story about this. Um we in our last rate review we submitted evidence that showed keeping that plant open saved customers more than hund00 million to us. We're constantly balancing our sustainability and environmental stewardship principles along with what is cost-effective and again what's going to keep the system reliable. So yes, we we changed our plans. We did and we try to be really open and honest about when those plans change. We meet with different stakeholder groups. We try to meet at least four times a year to talk about what our system looks like, what we're seeing. And it's not just it's not just large load data centers, it's electrification, it's the proliferation of EVs, it's onshoring. So, it is a combination of things that led to what I started my remarks when we used to be facing flat or declining load growth. We are now for the first time in decades seeing an uptick in that load growth. As we saw that load growth starting to materialize, we knew that we needed to take a look at all of our existing power plants and that's what led to the decision to keep it running on coal. >> You stated as part of your presentation that Wisconsin has been home to hundreds of data centers for years. How are the newest data How are the newest data centers different than the ones that you referred to? >> They're bigger. So, it used to be, you know, if you look at Epic, Epic, their almost their entire campus is data centers. If you look at American Family Insurance, they've had data centers for years. Most hospital systems have had data centers. The difference is size. So as the chips have gotten more efficient and smaller, the data centers themselves have gotten larger. Is it fair to say that the definition of data center that that terminology is something that has become incredible incredibly well known in the last few years, but previously these always existed but just in different forms than people might have understood them to be. Even even high schools potentially have what would be considered a data center, >> right? Or you would you could have been living near a data center for years and you didn't know it because the size and scale, right? It just looked like any other building that you would see in an industrial park. What lessons from Beaver Dam and Cedar Rapids would you encourage Shbboan to apply early to would you encourage Shbboan to apply early to complete for investment responsibility? So, I would encourage Shabboan to look at zoning and what ordinance provisions you think are necessary to address the concerns of your community members. I mean that that would be at the top of my list is I would look at zoning to address what are the predominant what are the predominant concerns you're hearing from the members of your community and how can you enact zoning to address those concerns. The second thing I would say based on experience is have a conversation with the developer and be really honest about what your community needs. If you sit down and you explain, you know, these are the projects that we are interested in. We are interested in conservation, we are interested in new infrastructure. Have that conversation early to gauge the developer's interest because if you don't ask for it, they're not going to know what's important to your specific community. Like I mentioned in Beaver Dam, it was really important that the conservancy be maintained and Meta came in and they deeded the property um to Birds Unlimited. So it's things like Sorry, Ducks Unlimited. Um it's things like that, but you have to ask the question, which is why I think what you're doing is the right move because you're hearing from people firsthand what the concerns are. That's the only way you're going to be able to address it. And ultimate ultimately if you decide to pass an ordinance or you decide to pass zoning and the developer says that doesn't work for me. Well then that's okay too. But at least they know. At least everybody knows. That's why we filed the tariff. The commission required us to file the tariff for that very reason because they said we don't want you negotiating contracts. >> Question specifically about that tariff. Um that was a relatively recent filing, correct? >> And and I believe that there were some comments within the community that the um assumed that that indicated that there was a data center imminent or coming specifically because of that filing, but it was intended to apply to all data centers that may be customers of Alliant. Is that correct? >> That's correct. It will apply to any large load customer of 100 megawatts or more. That's the other thing is we as an industry we're not allowed to discriminate against different types of industries. So we had to make that tariff specific to just the load. So it will apply to any customer that requires 100 megawatts or more. And the filing of that tariff was in direct response to an order from the public service commission that told us you have to file a large load tariff because we don't want you negotiating contracts anymore. We want everybody to be aware of the terms and conditions that you're offering to this set of customers. How does Alliant prioritize power amongst customers in case of an emergency situation? >> So the only thing that we can do and this is also state law is we prioritize critical facilities. So if you think um military installations, hospitals, um those are the facilities that we are allowed to prioritize. Otherwise, when it comes to how are we restoring service, it really is based on the physical nature of the system. You know, if if a if a transformer blows and that's feeding a thousand customers in one area and then we have five poles down and that's impacting 20 customers, we're going to go over here and try to fix this first because we want to try to restore as many people as possible by by aiming all of our time and resources as at what piece of equipment has to be fixed. I think the underlying intention of that question is probably if there is a data center that would were to be impacted by that versus members of the community, how would that be prioritized? >> They can't we can't treat them any differently. Now, what a lot of data centers have done is they have invested in backup generators. That is ultimately up to the customer. So, a residential customer can invest in a generator, a backup generator, right, to guard against uh outages, but we cannot legally say, "Yep, we're going to turn the data center on first." That's why they go out and they procure backup generating units because we can't we can't prioritize one customer over another. >> Why have electricity bills increased dramatically in the last two years? Uh, I wouldn't I wouldn't say they've increased dramatically. I would say this. >> Let's give her an opportunity to answer the question. >> So, the cost to build the infrastructure has to be paid for by customers, customers and investors. So, as we saw a thousand megawatts of wind be brought online, as we saw 12 solar facilities be brought online, there's a cost to installing those facilities. That was what made up the bulk of our last rate increase, and that was covering years 2026 and 2027. in any given year. The reason for increases in rates largely depends on the investments that are being made in the system. you mentioned um cost causation earlier I think and so the causation for the increases that you just mentioned were primarily for residential customers as opposed to any specific data center or am I >> there were no data centers we didn't even have a data center agreement signed when we went in for our last rate review so we didn't have a data center customer so all of the investments that were being paid for by the generation and the distribution investments were going to the benefit of all of our customers. It has nothing to do with data centers. If increased capacity is built to accommodate large large commercial users and the economy tanks, if if we were to have a recession and the large user leaves the community after say within five years, how much will the household residential customers need to pay percentage-wise approximately in order to cover those costs? Excuse me. in order to cover the utility's new capacity financial commitments that the utility expected the large user to cover. >> So what we included in our agreement are make whole payments which means if that data center customer leaves early or doesn't use as much capacity as they indicated that they still have to make us whole for all of those investments. That's that's the only lever we have to be able to ensure that we're not looking at stranded assets or that we're not looking at a situation where we've overbuilt and now the customer has said, "Oh, I actually only need 50% of what I told you." That's built into the contract that they have to pay for what they contracted. What we went out to procure, they have to pay for that. >> So that cost Again, that was generated by the need for the additional load capacity. If they had not fulfilled that commitment, paid that, they are still the ones responsible for it. >> Correct. >> Those costs would not be passed on to regular consumers. >> Correct. >> What if they did not pay the debt that they owed? Would it then eventually be passed on? Then we have financial security measures built into the contract where we would then go after whatever credit support we required of them. So if it's a parental guarantee or if it's some sort of letter of credit from another entity within that corporate structure, that's how we would recoup those dollars. >> There was a request for some additional clarification or for you to explain the term EDS. economic development or EV, electric vehicle. I think I used both. >> So EV is electric vehicle, ED is economic development. >> I think it was EV. Um onsharing >> onshoring >> onshoring sorry handwriting onshoring. >> Yep. Yep. So that's bringing manufacturing back to the United States. So, we're looking at different types of facilities, manufacturing facilities, um, and trying to incent them to locate their facilities in the United States rather than offshore. >> And then upgrades in load growth, >> further explanation of what you mean when you say upgrades in load growth. >> So, upgrades and load growth just means we used to not see any growth. When we would look across our customer base, we could predict with certainty that we were going to see maybe a quarter of a percent increase in load growth, meaning the amount of electricity needed to provide service to customers. So load is how much how much electricity do we have to provide to meet our customers needs. And so when we talk about load growth, we're talking about increasing the amount of electricity that's going to be required in order to meet those customer needs. >> You mentioned steps Alliant has taken to try to keep residential rates the same. How can we be assured Alliant will continue this for future projects? And what state legislation protects Wisconsinites from increased utility rates due to high usage customers? >> Well, the only legislation that exists in Wisconsin is just the entire statute that governs how the commission sets rates. Um, it lays out very specifically what the commission has to investigate and what it has to review when a utility goes in and asks for a change in rates. Um, and how do we ensure that the steps we've put in place will continue to be put in place? That's the only way that we can grow our business. We have to We don't have a choice. We have to continue to invest in the system. And we know that that isn't a simple, okay, well, we're going to invest $10 million and now we're going to turn to customers and ask for $10 million. We have to be attractive to investors. We also have to be open to different ways of looking at how costs are calculated and how they're recovered. So, it's it takes a lot of creativity and it takes a lot of thinking outside of the the box that we've been in for a really long time. But we don't we we don't have a we don't have a choice. Um because as costs increase, and this is this is the case for any business owner, there's an there's a point of inflection where your customers aren't going to continue to absorb price increases. We feel that every single day. That's why we're so aggressive about going out and trying to get tax credits. It's why we're so aggressive in trying to go out and get Department of Energy loans because those are the tools that we have available to us. And if we don't utilize those tools, we know that the only other choice is to ask for customer increases. And that's not an okay position to be in. related to what you were just sharing um and the prior question. Who are the independent state regulators holding Alliant responsible and rates accountable? There are three commissioners. They're appointed by the governor. Um two of them have not been confirmed yet by the state senate. Uh one of them has. So there's a chairperson who serves for a term of two years. um that chair position can be reappointed every two years, but commissioners are independently appointed by the governor subject to confirmation by the by the senate and they serve staggered six-year terms and that is by creation of the legislature in independent agency. referencing your comments earlier, can you please site the independent studies that you referenced which claim that adding data centers lowers customer power bills? >> Sure. Um there's >> and if you um for anybody who is interested in this potentially we can follow up and provide some links to those as well so that those can be made available um via social media. >> They you can also get to them through this um website. But I can tell you three of the independent firms. The first is the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. So the United States government funds national labs. Lawrence Berkeley is one of them. There's Idaho National Lab. There's a number of national labs whose job is to look at the the power system and study it and make sure that investments are being made in a responsible way. Lawrence Berkeley authored a report. The Brattle Group authored a report. uh and Charles River Associates also um authored a report. PBS did an interview with the Brattle group about that report and the findings of that report. Um but those are the three independent um studies that I referenced. We covered this earlier, but for clarification, um, in times of high energy use, will data center use have priority over residential users? And if so, what can residential users expect in terms of brownouts and other energy interruptions? >> No. And it's just the answer is no, because that's not the way the grid works. So, the electrons don't pick and choose where they go. um when when there's high energy use, if if a hundred people come home and turn on their air conditioner and plug in their their EVs, the electricity is going to go to serve that load. It's not going to say, "I'm not going over here because you're charging an EV. I'm only going to go over here because you turned on your air conditioner." That's why we're required to plan for the peak the peak load that we will have in any given day. Peak used to be pretty predictably in the summertime. We're seeing that change. We're seeing seasonality swings in terms of when people are consuming electricity and a lot of that has to do again with electrification. So if you think of electric heat pumps as an example, that drives electric usage in the winter. We didn't used to see that type of um spike in demand. Not only are we required to plan for the highest peak on the system, we are also required by the state of of Wisconsin to carry a reserve margin. So that means we calculate our highest load and then we have to add a percentage on top of that. That was a direct result of the impending brownouts in the late 90s. So that's been a requirement by the public service commission for about the last 25 30 years. >> Would you talk more about the increased size of the new data centers compared to the older data centers? Um the size is the biggest concern. >> I can't because I'm not a data center developer. I can't tell you why or what you know what goes into how they size their facilities. That's a great question for a hyperscaler. I can only tell you that when a customer comes to us and they're asking for 100 megawws, 500 megawws, 300 megawatts, that that's what we have to plan for. But I I don't I'm not an expert on data centers themselves, the facilities. >> Um in terms of traditionally what may have existed and still does do exist um that are not hypers scale, can you comment on what that data load would be comparatively speaking? I couldn't not with authority. I mean I could get I could get back to you but that I would be I would be guessing. >> Thank you. >> Can you guarantee residential customers will bear zero incremental infrastructure costs attributed to data centers? Yes or no? Yes, I can guarantee that that is was is the basis of our large load tariff and and I I urge you all to read it and to ask questions about it. Um it hasn't been approved. It's going to go through the process at the public service commission. But the sole basis of coming up with that tariff was to do exactly that. To make sure that we are isolating the costs being caused by large load customers, calculating those costs and then charging them to that large load customer. That's the entire foundation of that tariff. You mentioned reliability. You also mentioned Gary and Northern Indiana losing power. the data centers there stayed on. Can you address the data centers staying on? Why that would >> generators? It's part of their business model. Backup generators just like a lot of large a large large industrial customers have invested in backup generation because if you are operating a company or a system that cannot afford even a momentary outage then one of your primary investments is going to be in a backup generating system or unit. Can you address data centers buying bulk power in other parts of the country? How much will the Beaver Dam and Port Washington projects pay per kilowatt hour? Two separate questions. So, can you address data centers buying bulk power in other parts of the country? >> No, I can't because I'm not I'm not familiar with those rules. I'm only familiar with what's in Wisconsin and Iowa. So that would not be an option with Alliant for data centers to buy bulk and >> third party ownership is illegal in Wisconsin. So if a data center were to want to participate in the bulk power market and be a participant and buy and sell their own supply, they'd have to apply to be registered as a public utility. And that application, if it were approved, would then require that data center to be regulated as a public utility. So they would be subject to the same rules and regulations that we are. >> Second question was um how much will the Beaver Dam and Port Washington projects pay per kilowatt hour? >> I don't know about Port Washington. That is not our service area. They're not our customer. Uh, and I don't know the price off the top of my head, but that's going to be publicly available uh, in the commission's order when they approved our agreement in Beaver Dam. >> This is a question about line loss. Where does the line loss go? Does it have any effect on wildlife, people, farm animals? Does it disrupt fertility of farm animals? >> No, it's similar to evaporation. Um, I don't know. I'm not I'm not not an engineer. So, all I can tell you is that when electricity is transported across vast distances, it loses some of the electrons that were produced. That's why it's really important to make sure that we have a transmission system that's capable of moving the power to and from where it needs to be. But I I don't know from a from a strictly physics perspective, I don't know where it goes if this process is approved. So you wanted to tell us where the where the signal or where the uh loss goes, line loss goes. Is that correct? >> Thank you. Well, thank you for having me. This is a surprise. So, um, things heat up, right? You're incandescent light bulb gets hot. If we had those way back in the day, that's what happens with a big power line. Just gets freaking hot. And the higher the voltage, which is why they transmit at like hundreds of thousands of volts, happens to lose less heat than lower voltage. Don't ask me why. It's just the way it works. Any questions? Kind of nervous actually. What's that? So, the question is, what if they're buried? Same story, no difference. The problem with buried lines, though, is they take on water and it's cool if they're always underwater or cool if they're always not underwater. But if they dry out and get wet, dry out, get wet, that's pretty bad. >> Yes, sir. Anything else? Yes, sir. I think that's a question for the index card, sir. I don't have I don't have that answer. I think it's an index card question. >> You can We're we're still asking we're still asking questions off the index card, so bear with us. I don't understand this question. So, just one second. If customers pay for all infrastructure investments needed to serve them, why did everyone think you would be charging all of us to build new needed facilities? Why does everyone think about There there's a question about the purchase of land from town of Wilson or this question is ultimately asking about >> perceptions. Thank you. Um, I I feel like we've all been very clear. We've intended to be very very clear with what these sessions are about. There's no data center proposed for Shabboan. There is not. This council, the members that are here, we are all very concerned Everybody on council here voted unanimously for a moratorum on data centers and I think all of you guys are probably aware of that because you're here. It shows that you're very engaged in the process. We did that and and the language in that states 12 months andor when our zoning code is finalized, whichever comes later, not whichever comes first. We want to finalize our zoning code with the appropriate requirements that would govern data centers that could potentially come here in the future. It would be very shortsighted of us not to have those things in consideration when we update our zoning code. We held zoning code so that comprehensive plan could be put in place. That is coming very soon. Once comprehensive plan is complete, then we'll be moving on to data center. Excuse me, not data centers. Then we will be moving on to zoning. That was not a fraudian slip. We're talking about data centers here. Um, then we'll be moving on to zoning code and specifically we we feel um a need to be better informed as members of council. I think we could all raise our hands and say we want to be better informed. We want you guys to be able to have your questions answered related to that. Any conjecture about former filings that Alliant had put in place, any conjecture about purchases of land that the city has done, annexations, etc. isn't relevant to the fact that we are trying to understand how to improve our zoning. There is no data center planned to come to Shabboan. Period. We are here to learn and we're going to continue to ask our questions. We're going to continue to ask our questions. Please address the role of the public service commission in setting the role pardon me. Please address the role of the per public service commission in setting electric rates in the state of Wisconsin and can you contrast it with the regulatory environment in Iowa? So in Wisconsin, the commission is required to investigate the books and records of every utility that it regulates. And then it is required to authorize rates that are deemed just and reasonable. That's what the state law says. So just in reasonable is the standard by which the commission has to approve, reject or modify rates. In Iowa, the difference is not necessarily in the role of the commission, but it actually has more to do with tax incentives that were available in Iowa, which actually helped to catapult Iowa to the number one spot of being a the number one wind producing state in the country. So because we have so many wind facilities in Iowa, we have a number of tax credits that are available to us. The tax credits in combination with the revenues that we negotiated from those hyperscalers combine to help us freeze rates for five years. So it's not a difference in how the commissions are set up. They're actually set up pretty similarly. It has more to do with the tax environment in Iowa and the the size of the two hyperscalers that located in Cedar Rapids. >> On the same note, what problems or issues are handled by the PSC and utility regulations? Anything that has to do with the provision of water, electricity, uh, heat or light is what the statute says. So, anything that is convenient to the jurisdiction of the commission, they have the authority under state statute to investigate. Um, they have broad authority to open an investigation on their own motion. They don't need to seek permission to open investigations. So, our state law says the commission has the power vested in it as an independent agency to take all actions that are necessary and convenient to the regulation of public utilities. And in Wisconsin, that includes almost 700 municipallyowned water utilities. How would Shbboan's moratorum affect alliance plans? >> Alliance plans. >> Any plans for development that Alliant may have? >> We don't do the developing. So what um Shabboan's moratorum might influence a discussion if we get a call from an interested developer. Um but from alliance perspective we we are not out actively developing land. Um, so we partner with our communities and if there is a type of development or a type of economic development activity that makes sense for Shabboan and we have developers that are ready, we can connect those dots, but we do not go out and actively um develop land. That that's not in our business model. We're actually not allowed to do that. EPA standards are being repealed. How do you plan? How does Alliant plan on considering the land and water beyond the lessened standards? >> Beyond what? >> The lessening standards. So the EPA standards are being repealed. How does Alliant plan on considering the land and water with these lessened standards? >> Yeah. So we c we can't afford to swing with the pendulum of different um federal administrations. It it's not good for business. So what we have to do is we have to plan for the most stringent control and then we can't backtrack on that because that would cost a lot of money. It would also take a lot of time and it would very quickly put us out of compliance. So, we spend a lot of time talking to our federal delegation about what changes may or may not be coming, but we can't be subject to political whims. So, we have to plan our system for the regulations that are in place and then we have to operate our system in accordance with those regulations. You mentioned renewable and clean energy with Alliant. You also mentioned increased storms, but you did not specifically state climate change. What is What is Alliant and the state of Wisconsin doing to make sure the sudden spike in energy demand doesn't keep fossil fuel plants online past their due dates or even result in opening new fossil fuel power plants? So, I would just go back to my previous answer, which is we comply with the environmental regulations that are on the books. We're required to do that. We have our own sustainability goals. We have our own corporate responsibility report. That's separate and distinct from what the state may or may not be doing as it relates to climate change. Um, but we certainly we certainly have said that our goal is to be completely off of coal by 2040. We've said that publicly. It's in our corporate responsibility report. Um, and we continue to monitor environmental rules and regulations. We also continue to monitor environmental improvements that can be made um, and investments that can be made to help technology be cleaner. Those are the technologies that I referenced earlier. We don't know what the next technology is going to be. That's why nuclear has seen a resurgence in interest because it is zerocarbon. It's a zero carbon and it's a base load um generating capability. So these are things that we're constantly looking at. >> This might be an engineering question, but what happens with wind energy? What happens if the wind speed isn't at the rated wind speed for the windmill? That is when the wind doesn't blow when the wind blows too fast or too slow. What happens on the grid? >> That's getting way above my technical knowledge. That's for an engineer. I don't I there's no way I can answer that. >> How are you generating megawws keeping up with consumed megawws. How are you gener generating megawws and keeping up with consumed megawws? >> I think I need clarification on that. Oh, are is this asking if we generate more than is consumed? >> Oh, sure. So, yes, we participate in the day ahead market which says we're going to we predict that tomorrow our customers are going to consume x amount of megawatts. So based on that prediction, we're going to generate X plus megawws to the extent that we have additional capacity. We offer that into the market and MYSO then ultimately ultimately decides whether or not to take that excess and then we get paid for that excess. Those dollars go back to customers via our annual fuel filing. That's part of the calculation in our required fuel filings in Wisconsin. So there's a fuel plan. There's a fuel plan that we file with the commission every year. And then there's a fuel reconciliation that gets filed every year that looks at what did you think you were going to have to produce and what was the fuel cost associated with producing that versus what did you actually produce and what what did it actually cost you? And there's a true up that occurs. We offer it into the day ahead market. That that's all taken care of by MYSO, that mid-continent independent system operator that I talked about at the beginning. It's 15 states in the province of Manitoba. All the generation gets bid in and then MYSO essentially says okay you turn on you turn on you turn on you hold off you hold off you hold off and then the market clears well certain utilities like Alliant have invested in battery storage so we have a limited ability to store energy that gets produced so on a particularly sunny day. If our solar facilities are producing in excess, then that's why we have started to site batteries near our solar facilities because the battery then gets charged drawing off that extra capacity. The battery gets charged and then when the sun isn't shining, we discharge the battery and that sends the electricity back out. I think this is on a similar note, but do do Wisconsin public public utilities have the authority to require new large load customers to install solar battery cogen? No, utilities do not have the ability to require their customers to install anything other than a piece of safety equipment, for instance, that they might need as part of their distribution system. But no, we can't we can't force a customer to invest in any type of generation. Um, we have really great conversations with our customers. Some customers are 100% sustainably focused and they want to know how can they connect their own wind facility, their own solar facility. We have those conversations. Absolutely. We have programs that set the pricing and set the structure for how they can do that. Um others have come to us and they've said we know that we don't want to own our own facility, but can we buy renewable energy credits from you? So essentially offsets and we have those programs as well. Can we do that with with the Oh, sure. Sure. Sure. Municipalities can. Yeah. Yes, there were conversations in DeForest and one of the conversations was the forest came to that potential hyperscaler and said we want community solar to essentially offset what you're going to be consuming. And at the time the the large load customer said, "Okay, we'll do that." And then ultimately it fell through. But yes, the municipality has the ability to have that conversation with a developer and the community. Sure. Yeah. >> So, we're gonna Sure. So the question was, does the community have the ability to enter into a conversation with a large load customer about requiring them to have a certain type of electric generating facility? And the answer was the community certainly has the ability to have that conversation. And then I referenced the example that in the DeForest project which was defeated uh the community actually approached the hyperscaler and said we would like for you to install community solar at a level that will offset all of the electricity you are going to consume. That hyperscaler said yes, but ultimately that deal didn't go through. But yes, the municipality has the ability to have those conversations with the developer. Then whoever the utility is would enter into the conversation about well, how is that going to interconnect with our grid? So we would need to be a part of that. But it's certainly a conversation that can be had between the community, the local electeds, and the potential customer. >> It could be something that's incorporated into potential zoning requirements. It could be something that's incorporated into a development agreement between the city and um a third party. >> Yes. >> So, this is a question about the Midwest in general, but at least in the Alliant area, um how many natural gas plants are being built uh in the Midwest to power hyperscale AI data centers? >> Because we at Alliant don't specifically build generation for specific customers, I can't answer that. So for Alliant Energy, the answer is essentially none because we don't assign generation to customers. Other utilities do it differently. We don't built where that I don't know. I mean I we could go on to the public service commission website and they have a map of proposed generating facilities by uh generation type. Um, we could back into it that way, but I have no idea how many are have been proposed or are being built right now. >> How much of Alliance's current rate structure relies on state subsidies versus actual customer demand? >> We don't receive state subsidies. Why do residential customers receive mailings to opt into an insurance policy to maintain the electric connections to our homes? What happens to pass this cost? What happened to pass this cost on to customers and where does that money go? >> So that program I think is being referred to as homeserve. That's a program that we actually had a lot of requests from our customers in both Wisconsin and Iowa. So that offering was a direct response to requests from our customers. It is not subsidized by Alliant. It is provided by a third party and any revenues received are actually given back to customers in both Iowa and Wisconsin. We had to make a filing that demonstrated that any monies that were obtained by subscribing to Homeserve, those those dollars go directly back to customers. And that's on file with both commissions in Wisconsin and Iowa. >> Are you continuing to add alternative energy infrastructure despite the current administration's emphasis on fossil fuels? >> We are continuing to look at all of the above. We don't say no to any one particular generating source. Um we don't think that that's a responsible way to provide reliable service. So we're constantly balancing reliability, the resilience of the grid, the intermittent resources, and what technologies are available and what the cost of those technologies are. So we're continuing to look at all different types of generating facilities. Your background information indicates a year and a half with the AUP regulatory affairs and data center services. Can you elaborate on what that is? So when I was hired into Alliant, I took the job of being of overseeing regulatory and at the time that was when we had the first data centers coming online in Iowa. And it made sense from a corporate organizational perspective to keep that with regulatory because we knew we were going to have to get permission from the commissions in both states. We obviously understand that your expertise is in the field of energy and not zoning, but based on the um experience that you have had with hypers scale data centers coming into communities, what advice would you give common council and our community about the types of zoning regulation that would benefit us. >> I would start with the concerns of your community members. I would use that as the basis and make sure that the zoning addresses those concerns. And then secondarily, I would look for input about things like generating types of generation or community solar or um environmental stewardship or whatever is the most important to you as a community should find its way into some sort of a partnership agreement, community agreement, joint development agreement. When I first started, I worked on the sighting of wind farms. And a big part of that was talking to towns and villages and talking about a joint development agreement that the community and the developer walked away feeling like this is a good deal for for both of us that we're each getting what we're looking for. Um, but I think that's why it's really important to get the input on the front end so that you can address I always look at it as address the really big rocks first. Get those off the table and then the next step can be talking about what's important to the community. Is it the type of generation that's being produced? Is it investing in fire, police, schools? Is it investing in roads? um that ultimately has to be up to the community and then you as electeds. >> Thank you. That is all the questions. Um we appreciate your time. We appreciate your answers and your engagement with the community. So, thank you very much. Um there are a handful of questions that we are going to um keep in reserve for our future sessions because the content of those questions is more appropriate for one of the next three sessions that we have planned in terms of the speaker's expertise and knowledge base. So those are being reserved. We will have those. As a reminder, the next three Wednesdays we will have sessions here. Um the schedule next week is slightly different. We have a professor from Harvard who's going to be joining us remotely. Um so that that's going to be a little bit of an abbreviated session. It's a total of an hour from 6:30 to 7:30 I believe. Um and so each of these is going to be focused on a different topical um area. We appreciate your engagement. We appreciate you guys all coming out tonight. We hope you'll continue to learn with us over the course of the month. Thank you all very much. You guys have a great night. >> Thank you for having me.