Join our Boulder Area chapter for a briefing and update from Morey Wolfson, who helped spearhead the development of the recently released CRES Hyperscale Data Centers policy statement.

The presentation will describe the CRES policy statement, outlining how the topic may be considered at the legislature, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, the Governor’s office, electric utilities, and within the data center industry. The discussion will focus on recent developments that may affect environmental and ratepayer outcomes in Colorado.

As has been widely reported, Hyperscale Data Centers (HDCs) are projected to expand at a rapidly growing rate over the next several years, primarily driven by the deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology that requires significantly more computing power and energy than conventional and smaller data center processing. The Electric Power Research Institute, a research arm of investor-owned utilities, concluded that AI will drive growth of HDCs that could double their electric demand by 2030. Internet queries using AI require about 10 times the electricity of traditional Internet searches. The projected load growth from HDCs poses significant challenges to our transition path towards renewable energy and could have negative impacts on ratepayers.

The key positions of the CRES Policy Statement are:

• Oppose further subsidies to hyperscale data centers (HDCs);
• Favor requirements that HDCs secure renewable energy sources to match or exceed their energy use;
• Require HDCs to pay upfront for any additional renewable energy generation and related transmission on the power system caused by their energy use;
• Ensure that Colorado ratepayers are protected by requiring HDCs to make an up-front termination liability payment, and a decommissioning bond should they experience a downturn.

Doors open at 6:45 PM. A Q&A session will follow the main presentation, so bring your questions!

This event is in person at the SEEC building on the University of Colorado Boulder’s East Campus. Parking is paid. Please enter through the west entrance in front of the main lobby and auditorium on the first floor. Signage will be posted in the main lobby.