Rising electricity prices – driven in part by demand to build data centers – are making energy unaffordable for thousands of Missouri families, according to consumer advocates, and the issue has gotten the attention of U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri.
“Well, my concern is this. We’ve got tens of thousands now of Missouri ratepayers who can’t afford their electricity bills, who are getting kicked off of the grid. And yet these AI data centers look to me like they’re getting a sweetheart deal,” Hawley told Missourinet. “I mean, they’re coming in here sucking up the electricity off of the grid, taking it away from hard working Missourians. I think that’s exactly backwards.”
Nearly 15,000 Ameren Missouri customers lost power in September, according to records released by the Missouri Public Service Commission.
Hawley sent a letter to Ameren Corporation CEO Martin Lyons asking about a proposed 15% rate increase, the disconnections documented by the PSC, data center expansion, and whether the St. Louis-based utility plans to pass along the cost of new data centers to its customers.
“If these data centers, these AI centers, want more power, they should pay for it,” Hawley said. “If somebody’s going to pay higher rates, they should be paying higher rates. Frankly, if somebody needs to build out the grid and finance it, they should be doing that. These are the richest companies in the world.”
Hawley said he hopes Ameren is prioritizing ratepayers over corporate giants.
In a statement, Rob Dixon with Ameren Missouri says they’re not offering data center companies “any discounts,” and that infrastructure costs for large data centers “are not passed on to other customers.”
In response, Ameren Missouri provide the following statement from Rob Dixon, Senior Director of Economic, Community, and Business Development:
“Data centers are required by law to pay rates that the Missouri Public Service Commission has determined reasonably cover their fair share of energy costs to serve them. Ameren Missouri is not offering these businesses any discounts. The infrastructure costs to connect large data centers to the grid are not passed on to other customers.”
Meanwhile, Missouri Senate President Pro-tem Cindy O’Laughlin, R-Shelbina, has jumped into the dispute. She sent a letter to Sen. Hawley, which said in part that his claim that energy rate increases could be tied to data center development is “misleading.” Her letter mentions the passage of legislation this year that she said is “designed specifically to protect Missouri consumers from higher electric rates caused by large industrial users, including data centers.” SB 4 gives utility companies the authority to use a so-called “future test year” model for setting rates based on projected costs.
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