Bill > HF3296

This bill amends Minnesota's energy statutes to add a definition for "data center" and modify provisions related to gross annual retail energy sales calculations. The bill defines a data center as a freestanding structure primarily used to process, store, and transmit digital information. Specifically, the legislation excludes electric sales to data centers from the calculation of a utility's gross annual retail energy sales, similar to existing exemptions for data mining facilities. This means that when a utility calculates its total retail energy sales for regulatory purposes, sales to qualifying data centers will not be included in that total. The exemption applies to data centers that provide a signed verification letter to the utility and meet certain peak electrical demand thresholds, which in this case is imposing a peak electrical demand equal to or greater than 40 percent of a consumer-owned utility's system. This change could potentially benefit large data centers by reducing the energy sales calculations that might impact utility regulations or energy conservation requirements.

Agriculture and Natural Resources

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php?b=House&f=HF3296&ssn=0&y=2025