Brian Heithoff, Trico CEO and GM
Last month, Trico Electric Cooperative celebrated our 80th year with a look back at all we accomplished in 2025. As Trico starts its 81st year, I want to look forward to an issue that will be important for Trico in 2026 and for years to come: data centers.
I recognize there are concerns about data center development in our communities. Questions about water usage, community impact, and whether these projects benefit local residents are important. From an energy perspective, there is no denying that data centers are a significant challenge, an important challenge that utilities across the country are working to solve. At Trico, we look at the issue through the lens of our mission and our commitment to providing all our Members with cost-effective and sustainable energy solutions. As a cooperative, we work to reliably serve all loads in our territory, but we also have an obligation to do so on terms that protect and benefit all our Members.
That’s why our Member-elected Board developed a rigorous framework that establishes exactly how we work with data centers. We are laser-focused on protecting the Membership from financial and reliability risks, and we see benefits that can be gained for our entire Membership if and when these projects move forward.
The first question we have heard from Members is: will data centers increase Members’ energy costs? It is true that in many places data centers have increased costs. However, Trico is different for two reasons: 1) we are a not-for-profit cooperative; and 2) we plan to assign all costs, including power supply.
As a not-for-profit cooperative our purpose is to serve our Members. When it comes to power supply, we are different than many utilities because we lock in generation resources and contracts in advance to cover our Members’ load. This minimizes the number of purchases we make on the energy market. This allows us to separate our existing Member power supply costs into one bucket and put the cost of power supply for a data center into a different bucket (that will be paid for by the data center). This provides protection for Trico Members.
To further protect our Members financially, we will require contractual commitments that any large data center pays 100% upfront for all distribution and transmission infrastructure. They also pay for all system impact studies. Importantly, they also receive direct assignment of generation costs and the expense to develop, build, and maintain additional generation resources. If the cost to build or buy new resources to serve them exceeds the existing generation costs built into our rates, the data center pays that difference—not our other Members. This protects our Members, our community, and the financial health of our cooperative.
How can Members benefit? Data centers consume electricity 24/7. When they pay all transmission and distribution infrastructure costs, those costs do not spread across the Membership. Then, as data centers pay rates that reflect the true cost of serving the load, this creates a margin for the cooperative, and this benefits all Members. This margin can actually defer the need for rate increases for the entire cooperative.
Your Trico Board has been proactive, strategic, and focused on protecting Members. The result is an opportunity to make the challenge of data centers into a benefit that works for Trico Members. That’s the cooperative difference.