By David Erickson, Missoulian
The debate over data centers, which are coming into Montana and requesting to buy enormous amounts of electricity, heated up significantly at the Montana Legislature this week. In fact, you could call it a power struggle over whether regulators have the power to turn these so-called “large load” customers away or not.
NorthWestern Energy, the Montana Chamber of Commerce and a state lawmaker want to strip away the Montana Public Service Commission’s ability to review and approve or deny large load electricity customers, like data centers, that would buy at least five megawatts (and usually significantly more) from NorthWestern. They say data centers are a new “gold rush” that will create jobs and increase the tax base.
