By JIM BUTLER
Cleco expects to receive more than $2 billion over 15 years from electricity sales to the data center under construction near Boyce.
“Under current billing conditions and expected usage, incremental base rate and rider revenues are projected to total greater than $2 billionxxxx (sum redacted) over a 15-year term” Cleco says.
That expectation is included in supporting documents filed with the Pineville-based utility’s application to build a generation station and transmission line to serve the center.
The Public Service Commission will consider Cleco’s request for authorization of contracts including site specific terms, transmission interconnections, new generation and waivers for the large-load customer at its meeting next Wednesday.
The firm proposes to generate 430 megawatts by 2028 at the station near Hineston, fueling it with power supplied by a proposed solar farm nearby.
Cleco filings indicate that is the single largest load ever generated by the utility.
According to Cleco, the costs associated with the project will be recovered entirely through sales to the data center.
The project’s “direct offset to shared system costs that would otherwise be recovered entirely from existing customers, (produces) net financial benefit for existing customers” one official attests, referring to necessary system investments envisioned before the data center came along.
Those plans did not include the additions necessitated by the data center, whose primary tenant (name redacted) will bear exclusively all costs attributable to the project, the documents say.
Ten filings from Cleco executives discuss various aspects of matters necessary to the requested certification and Electric Service Agreement.
Several parties have filed notice as intervenors in the matter, customary in such actions in order to ask, and have answered, questions regarding their particular interests.