Data center projects are rapidly expanding in North Carolina and across the country (see A Look Inside a Data Center) prompting questions from people looking for clear, transparent information. I’d like to share how electric cooperatives in North Carolina approach this issue from a unique position.

Electric co-ops are local membership organizations, governed by members of the community and deeply invested in the long-term health of the places we call home. Unlike investor-owned utilities, we do not have distant shareholders, nor do we pursue growth opportunities to generate profits for investors. In fact, we are not-for-profit and provide electricity at the cost of doing business. That reality makes cooperatives careful and disciplined by design.

When a data center has been approved through local land-use and permitting processes and requests electric service, the cooperative’s responsibility is not to promote or oppose the project. Our role is to provide facts and define a potential path to service for that project.

We will meet changing community needs while keeping the best interests of our members first.

In doing so, our priority is straightforward: Any new load served by the co-op must be done while protecting the interests of our consumer-members. This is a matter of fairness. If serving a new large-load project creates the need for additional infrastructure, power supply or operating resources, those costs will be paid by the project rather than existing members. To achieve this outcome, co-ops are able to structure agreements with data centers to include factors like deposits, as well as upfront infrastructure construction payments and more frequent billing. Meeting the power needs of large-load projects falls within the scope of collaborative planning on behalf of North Carolina’s electric cooperatives, which work years ahead of expected power demand.

In line with our priority to protect our members, a large, steady load can also create meaningful benefits. Electric cooperatives maintain substantial fixed costs in poles, wires, substations, technology and system operations.

When a new large-load project pays the full cost of serving its facility and contributes fairly to the shared system, additional energy sales can spread fixed costs across more kilowatt-hours, improve economies of scale and help reduce upward cost pressures on rates for all members over time. This can be particularly beneficial for a rural electric cooperative, which generally has a low number of consumers per mile of line.

Any proposed project must stand on its own facts. Adequate generation must be available. Reliability and power quality for current members cannot be compromised. Financial protections must remain in place if the project is delayed, reduced or closed.

Our local perspective helps us balance immediate development opportunities with our enduring duty to protect affordability, reliability and community trust. Widespread data centers may be new, but our guiding principles are not. We will meet changing community needs while keeping the best interests of our members first. That is the cooperative way, which has served our communities well over decades, and will continue to into the future.