Sheboygan residents were given a lesson on energy management when the President of Alliant Energy, Becky Valcq, dug deeply into the practical and regulatory web of issues faced by public power utilities and those they serve amid the growth of data centers.
The mostly-orderly crowd attending the City’s first in a series of expert speakers was told by Valcq that there are tangible benefits to residents when data centers operate in the area, and the increase in the tax base has made possible community investment on what she called a “breathtaking” scale. While she said that hosting a data center is not for every city, “…but I will applaud Sheboygan for having this type of a forum for asking questions because we’re only gonna 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 what community, and what didn’t work.”
Valcq stated that data centers would not get priority over residential users in the case of a black out or brown out, because that’s not how the grid functions. Valcq was most emphatic in answering a question on the minds of many in attendance – that was whether she could guarantee residential customers would bear no costs regarding costs for data centers. She said, emphatically, “Yes, I can guarantee that is, was, is the basis of our Large Load Tariff.” She explained that the sole purpose for coming up with the Large Load Tariff was to provide such protection. The LLT basically means that the data center, or any other large load user, would be responsible for paying for the infrastructure needed, rather than passing the costs down to the average consumer.
Alliant to Continue Edgewater Coal Operations Through ’29
Addressing the local energy economy, Valcq said that Alliant has changed their plans, now committing to operate the Edgewater Generating Station as well as their unit in Columbia running on coal through 2029.
“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.”
The second in the series takes place next Wednesday Night.
Comments