The City Council’s passage of two ordinances that would help offset utility costs for huge power users brought Columbia a little bit closer to landing a new data center at the Ewing Industrial Site.
“We think we will see in the foreseeable future a data center locate in Columbia,” City Manager Bill Watkins said at Monday’s meeting.
One of the ordinances allows customers using more than 10 megawatts to take power directly from the transmission system, where the city electric utility gets its power to convert to consumer usage levels. The Water and Light Department would negotiate a contract with a large user so they could buy power at market transmission rates, which would then need to be approved by the council.
“A large data center can negotiate a power rate at the same level or cheaper than the city,” Watkins said.
The other ordinance would allow the city to reinvest up to 50 percent of electric utility taxes generated by a large power user (more than 10 megawatts) into public infrastructure the customer would have to construct to get access to the power. The Water and Light Department estimated that a 10 megawatt customer would generate at least $200,000 in utility revenue a year. Watkins stressed that no user currently uses that much power.
Council members were enthusiastic in supporting the incentives. Third Ward Councilman Karl Skala called it “the epitome of growth management planning” because it targeted growth at areas with the needed infrastructure already there.
“What it does is give those companies predictability on one of their highest operating costs,” Fourth Ward Councilman Jerry Wade said.
Nancy Heimann, the project manager for the Ewing Industrial Park, applauded the city manager and the Water and Light Department. She said the new ordinances will give potential users predictability in their electrical costs, because power costs fluctuate daily.
Heimann said there’s six or seven data center tenants she has been in discussions with about locating at the site, from telecom companies to banking companies. She said other communities have similar ordinances for large power users, such as Austin and Little Rock, but Columbia’s is even more innovative because it is “a true pay as you go approach.”
Categories: Business.
