'We've never seen anything like this': Groups warn of data centers at Missoula meeting

Representatives from four environmental nonprofits gave a presentation in Missoula on Tuesday night to sound the alarm bells about the harms that may come from data centers in Montana if they're allowed to consume vast quantities of electricity.

"We are driving a car off a cliff," said Anne Hedges, the executive director of the Montana Environmental Information Center. "And we have nobody here to protect us at the moment. I just want to talk the scale of what we're talking about, because, like I said, we have never seen anything like this."

She gave a presentation to a crowd of over 100 at the University Center Theater on the University of Montana campus, talking about how much power data centers will require in the next decade in the U.S. if their growth continues unabated.

NorthWestern Energy has signed letters of intent with three separate data center companies that want to build in Montana. Combined, the three companies are planning to consume between 850 and 1,400 megawatts by the year 2030.

The upper end of that megawatt range is roughly enough power to supply a million homes, and it's twice the total residential load that NorthWestern currently supplies to all customers.

"It is mind-numbing to think that we would have to provide that much power to these companies," Hedges said.

A typical refinery uses about 50 megawatts, she said.

Two of those data center companies are planning on building near Butte, and another one, called Quantica, is planning on building in Yellowstone County. Quantica alone is proposing to use 1,000 megawatts eventually.

There are 11 other data center companies that are working with NorthWestern on plans for buying large amounts of electricity.

Another data center company, Krambu, has plans for a facility in Bonner, just outside Missoula. It could eventually seek as much as 100 megawatts.

Hedges told the crowd that she believes that data centers will cause residential electricity rates to rise more than they would without the centers.

She said that customer demand for electricity from NorthWestern has only increased by 3.6% since 2007, but electricity rates have risen 87% in that time.

"So that's astounding, but what's even more astounding is that since 2022, NorthWestern residential electricity rates have increased almost 40%," she said. "So, if you're thinking that your bills have increased a lot, that's because they have. That's because we don't have regulators who are saying 'no' to the utility, and the utility has learned it can come forward and ask for anything and pretty much get whatever it wants."

The Missoulian asked NorthWestern Energy spokesperson Jo Dee Black to confirm the numbers for residential rates.

In January of 2022, a NorthWestern customer using 750 kilowatts of electricity would have paid $88.21. In May of 2026, that bill would have been $124.34, a rise of 40.9%. (Electricity rates fluctuate all the time, and rates for electricity were actually slightly higher in January of 2021 than they were in January of 2022.)

"We do know that NorthWestern CEO Brian Bird has said that they are justifying all of these rate increases because of increased demand," Hedges said. "And as you can see on that previous slide, it's not residential customers who are increasing their demand for energy, it's data centers."

She went on to say that across the U.S., electricity rates for residential, commercial and industrial customers rose at about the same rates up until about 2007.

"Then something happened between 2007 and 2021, and you can see residential customers' rates across the country rose faster," Hedges said. "They rose faster than commercial and industrial. I argue commercial and industrial have wonderful attorneys that sit before utility commissions and make strong arguments in their favor, and we are not adequately represented as residential customers in these proceedings, either in Montana or any place else in the country."

"And our elected officials or appointed officials are the ones who are making these terrible decisions on our behalf," Hedges said.

Another risk, she added, is that all these data centers come online because of a "bubble" in demand, but then that demand falls off and they go out of business. If residential customers have been asked to help pay for more power generation, like new gas plants that are suddenly no longer needed, that's a big problem.

"What happens to all of the infrastructure that was built to accommodate (data centers)," Hedges said. "The power plants, the transmission lines, the distribution lines, the community water systems? Who pays for that if these guys go belly up? We have a familiarity with that kind of boom and bust cycle in this state, and so we should be careful, because investors are worried about it too."

The bottom line, Hedges said, is that consumers should tell their elected officials to make sure data centers are on the hook for all the investments that are made on their behalf if they close up shop.

"We want to make sure that existing customers are not going to be subsidizing them," she said.

Derek Goldman, from the NW Energy Coalition, said Montana has seen a lot of boom and bust cycles from industries that extracted resources, then picked up and left.

"Since statehood, we've experienced booms like this, from the rise of the copper industry, the coalbed methane rush, the timber barons, the Bakken boom, the luxury real estate land grab and other well-financed expansions of industry," he said. "All who viewed Montana as easy pickings. And Montanans have largely paid the costs in the past. We're still dealing with a legacy of metal mining pollution, pulp and paper mill pollution, farmers in eastern Montana who have fought oil and gas companies for the rights to their own water."

He noted that there are still fish consumption advisories in the state for harmful chemicals and metals.

"In many ways the AI data center rush feels similar to those booms of the past, a growing billionaire-backed industry seeking to monetize Montana's resources for private gain," he said. "And if we aren't diligent and firm in seeking strong sideboards around data centers, we could end up paying the financial and environmental costs, with the economic benefits largely accruing to out-of-state tech billionaires."

Amy Cilimburg of Climate Smart Missoula and Barbara Chillcott of the Western Environmental Law Center also spoke about the consequences of allowing data centers to consume huge amounts of power.

The Montana Public Service Commission is in the process of reviewing a proposed "large load tariff" submitted by NorthWestern, which would provide a framework for supplying data centers.

"In coordination with the Commission’s review and approval of electric service contracts for new large-load customers, the tariff will provide regulatory oversight and cost transparency, while ensuring that system growth is managed responsibly and costs are allocated fairly," Black said in an email to the Missoulian earlier this past spring.