CASS COUNTY, N.D. – The head of the Cass County Electric Cooperative is trying to reassure customers that rates will not go up to power a new artificial intelligence data center that will soon operate north of Fargo.
Locals have expressed growing concern about Applied Digital’s $3 billion plan to build the facility in Harwood.
“We are not going to raise rates as a direct result of serving Applied Digital,” Cass County Electric Cooperative President and CEO Paul Matthys said on WDAY Radio’s The Jay Thomas Show.
Acknowledging it’s a “legitimate concern”, Matthys says they have the capacity to handle the plant’s power load.
“We have the power contract secured to serve that load without interrupting service with raising rates.”
But Matthys clarified by saying rates could rise based on other market factors independent of the data center.
“We are in a time where there’s an immense amount of upward pressure on rates just because of inflation and labor costs,” said Matthys.
“We are in a period of transition and having to look at replacing our existing legacy power supply assets.”
At the same time, Matthys says the data center will end up benefiting customers.
“We figured out a way to not only mitigate that risk, but use the margins that we’re getting from that load to help pay for some of our fixed costs,” said Matthys.
“[The AI date center will] help pay for some of the future costs that we have in power supply planning and transition so that it reduces the upward pressure on rates for our existing members.”
Matthys also said the the data center will have “complete backup generation”, which is the case for multiple scenarios called ‘max gen events’ that can be handled by others members through the Midcontinent Independent System Operator.
Matthys says MISO partners already have plans in place to offset possible lack of wind, supply shortages or high loads.
“If that were to happen, that load can come off line voltage and operate on their backup diesel generators,” said Matthys.
