Warrenton city officials spent some time during their meeting Nov. 4 asking a series of questions to Ameren representative Rob Dixon about the potential effects of a proposed data center coming to the area.
Dixon, the senior director of economic, community and business development for Ameren Missouri, gave a presentation during the Warrenton Board of Aldermen to outline Ameren’s position regarding the data center and questions regarding rates for Ameren customers.
Dixon’s report to the board closely tracked his previous interview with the Warren County Record which appeared in the Oct. 30 edition.
Dixon answered several questions regarding the proposed data center project that Ameren has received.
Dixon said Ameren’s Powering Missouri Growth Plan as it relates to data centers establishes a contract that requires data centers to pay their fair share of the costs to serve them. He said under the plan data centers will be required to pay their costs to connect to the grid and the plan protects other customers from unjust or unreasonable rates.
Dixon also said residential customers are not paying any of the costs for data centers to connect to the grid. He also dispelled the rumor that infrastructure upgrades in Warren County were specifically geared towards data centers. Dixon said upgrades such as the Root Beer substation and Split-Rail solar project were previously planned to meet ongoing customer needs.
Dixon also told the board that any incoming data center would not be receiving discounts for green energy related programs and would in fact be paying a premium to participate in those programs.
Dixon also said data centers are not in the same rate class as residential customers and Ameren is not offering discounted rates or incentives to companies to build such centers.
Dixon said if a data center fails, Ameren would adjust its plans for future development and companies would be required to pay significant termination fees.
Alderman Christine Wait asked Dixon a series of questions including whether Ameren would be using a construction work in progress (CWIP) agreement and how Ameren can justify ratepayers paying for infrastructure before a proposed data center is online.
Dixon explained that CWIP is an accounting process that allows Ameren to recover funds for infrastructure improvements before those improvements are energized. He said such arrangements have nothing to do with large load customers such as data centers.
Dixon also said Ameren has no current power purchase agreements with any proposed data center in response to another question from Wait.
Dixon told Wait that he couldn’t tell her the amount of megawatts requested by a proposed data center, but he noted that Ameren has a plan for an additional 2,000 megawatts across their entire service area by 2032.
Alderman Roger Romaker said residents were concerned with an increase in their rates due to a possible data center coming to the area. Dixon said he understood the community’s concern but that state law requires that any data center company pay their fair share of the costs of using electricity.
Alderman Larry Corder asked Dixon to explain why rates for Ameren customers recently increased. Dixon explained that rates increased due to a rate adjustment to pay for a variety of upgrades and system improvements. He reiterated that the rate adjustment was approved by the Missouri Public Service Commission. Dixon later added that Ameren does not have any rate adjustment plans before the PSC.
Mayor Eric Schleuter then asked about the risk of brownouts to local customers. Dixon said when a data center comes to Ameren engineering is done to make sure the company is reliably serving all of its customers.
