WIRED FOR GROWTH: Balancing data center demand and reliability

Data centers may feel like a big-city phenomenon, but more and more of them are showing up in rural communities like ours––and there’s good reason for that. Rural areas offer what data centers need most: affordable land, room to grow and access to transmission lines that can move large amounts of power.

What makes data centers different from other large businesses is their appetite for electricity. These facilities run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Servers must stay online constantly, which means power has to be reliable every minute of every day.

For electric cooperatives like Oakdale Electric Cooperative (OEC), powering data centers creates both opportunities and challenges. 

On the plus side, data centers have the potential to bring steady, long-term load growth that helps support investments in the local grid. With proper planning and policy support, those upgrades — including new substations, stronger lines and smarter technology — could benefit all OEC members and help keep residential and commercial electricity rates steady.

But providing power to data centers presents challenges, too. These facilities can be constructed and operating in as little as one year, but ensuring the necessary infrastructure, equipment and electricity requires longer lead times and significant financial investment by the data centers. Strategic planning and partnerships, as well as long-term power supply strategies, are essential to the process.

While OEC does not currently serve any data centers, co-ops nationwide are fielding requests and inquiries from tech companies, and we have had similar requests and discussions.

As a member-owned cooperative, our responsibility is twofold: to listen to the communities we serve and to provide reliable, affordable electric service to all current and future OEC members.