By Reagan Priest | State Affairs
The Arizona Corporation Commission held its first workshop exploring how to regulate energy costs for data centers and manufacturing facilities as they continue to sprout up across the state.
Thursday’s discussion centered around how the commission and utility companies can attract “large load users” to Arizona without putting an unbearable strain on the state’s energy grid and passing the costs of serving those users onto residential ratepayers.
Commissioner Kevin Thompson, who opened the commission’s docket on data center issues and led the workshop, said at the end of the meeting that more workshops are likely to come before the commission develops any new policies or rules to address large load users. Whatever avenue the commission decides to take, it will likely be one friendly to data centers, manufacturing facilities and other energy-intensive projects.
“I don’t think it’s realistic to bury our heads in the sand and simply say no to new data centers,” Thompson said during the workshop.
