MINOT — Bismarck-based Montana Dakota Utilities says a data center near Williston, with its enormous demand for power, is pushing electrical rates higher for its customers. The facility in question, operated by Atlas Power of Montana, was championed by Gov. Doug Burgum when it opened, but I’m not sure many North Dakotans who live in the region of the facility would say it has been a good neighbor.

At one point, the Williams County Commission

voted to cut power

to the facility because Atlas hadn’t fulfilled certain obligations to the community, including addressing complaints about the noise the data center produces. Now comes news from MDU that the data center’s big power demands are creating grid congestion and

driving prices higher for ratepayers.

The utility has filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and North Dakota’s Public Service Commission is weighing in, too.

I’m not sure there are any good guys in this situation. Even if we set the power demands of Atlas aside, the western North Dakota energy market is a growing one, and Public Service Commissioner Randy Christmann’s points about MDU failing to invest in more generation for the region are well-made, I think.

“In the grid, little things add up, we’re seeing it all the time. What responsibility does MDU have?”

he said during a recent PSC meeting.

“They chose to close the Lewis and Clark Station up there, they’ve chosen not to add any generation, they know they have significant load up there.”

MDU closed the coal-fired Lewis and Clark Station in Sidney, Montana,

in 2021.

They demolished Heskett Station, located in Mandan, North Dakota,

last year.

Some of this problem, rooted as it is in a struggle to meet new demand, has to do with the politically driven push to narrow our supply of baseload power. We’ve been treating wind-generated electrons and coal/gas/nuclear electrons as though they were equivalent, and they’re not. The latter electrons are far more reliably produced than the former.

Christmann has a point. But so, too, does Commissioner

(and U.S. House candidate)

Julie Fedorchak. The Atlas data center was built amid already growing demand for power in the region, she says, with little concern for what the impact would be.

“The big X-factor that changed everything up there was the data center that was added, and the proper studies weren’t conducted to appropriately accommodate that load; it’s a terrible place for a data center. There’s no excess capacity up there,”

she said.

The Atlas facility currently consumes about 240 megawatts. —

roughly the amount it takes to keep Fargo’s lights on.

When completed, it is expected to gobble up about 700 megawatts. The facility will eventually represent almost three Fargos worth of energy consumption.

To what end? When the facility was announced, it was said that 65% of its function would be for crypto, which enthusiasts have promoted as a revolution for banking and commerce. In reality, cryptocurrency is mostly a vehicle for

fraud, black market transactions, and gambling.

Fedorchak is right. More thought could have been put into this. Burgum promoted this project. He should weigh in now that its realities are setting in.