Wisconsin utility regulators have approved Alliant Energy's individual rate agreement to serve Meta's data centre campus in Beaver Dam, and attached conditions that will shape what the next hyperscale customer in the state gets to negotiate. The Public Service Commission cleared the contract, then ordered Alliant to apply for a standard rate covering future data centre loads of 100 megawatts or more.
The agreement runs to 220 megawatts over a 10-year term, serving a $1 billion campus. Meta pays for a minimum energy demand whether or not it draws the power, and pays again if it ends service early. Regulators strengthened those termination charges by extending them across the full 10 years.
What commissioners declined to do was lengthen the contract. They kept the 10-year term rather than pushing it to 15, as they did with a separate large-load proposal from We Energies. Customer advocates and environmental groups had argued for terms of up to 20 years.
Alliant spokesperson Melissa McCarville said the agreement protects other ratepayers. "Protecting our customers while allowing communities to grow is central to our commitment at Alliant Energy, and that’s exactly what this contract is designed to do," she wrote. The enforcement mechanism behind that sentence is the minimum-demand floor and the termination charges, which is what a utility relies on when a large load turns out smaller or shorter than forecast.
Process, not price, drew the sharper comments. PSC Chair Summer Strand called transparency "non-negotiable" and said of the filing: "As we saw here, there is still this black-box approach that includes nondisclosure agreements, heavily redacted filings, corporate pseudonyms and negotiations shrouded in secrecy". Alliant's first application blacked out both the power the project needed and the length of the agreement. Regulators sent it back, and the amended agreement is where the 220 megawatt figure appears.
Separate from the rate itself is what Meta puts into the grid. The company said it would underwrite nearly $200 million in infrastructure investments, including transmission lines and utility substations, to cover costs associated with building the data centre. That sits alongside roughly $2 billion in transmission projects American Transmission Co. is planning for data centres in Mount Pleasant, Port Washington and Beaver Dam.
The commission attached several other conditions. Alliant must work with American Transmission Co. so other Wisconsin customers are not billed for transmission costs tied to data centres, though federal regulators ultimately set transmission rates. Meta must cover any costs if its subsidiary Degas LLC runs into financial trouble. Alliant also owes the commission expanded reporting, cost-of-service studies and an incremental cost analysis showing what its system looks like with and without Meta's demand.
For anyone siting large load in Alliant territory, the starting point of the next negotiation has moved, because the commission has told the utility to bring it a standard rate for anything at or above 100 megawatts rather than a bespoke contract. The conditions attached here, a minimum-demand floor, termination charges running the full term, and a parent guarantee standing behind the project company, are the terms a buyer should now expect to be asked to accept.
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