ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind.-- Michiana is "blessed" with the big four-- power, water, connectivity, and land, according to St. Joseph County director of economic development, Bill Schalliol. These are the characteristics drawing some of the world's biggest tech companies to the region, creating "The Silicon Prairie."
"So, we know that we have some new customers coming into our territory, what we call large load, so mostly data centers at this point," said Stephanny Smith, director of communications for Indiana Michigan Power. "The Amazons, the Googles, that require a lot more energy than our typical customers do."
Data centers are complexes of computer servers, running 24/7, for cloud computing and machine learning, a.k.a. artificial intelligence.
In St. Joseph County alone, Amazon Web Services is investing $11 billion into their New Carlisle data center complex-- and to the east, Microsoft is planning its own data center.
As our new neighbors move in, are we ready to meet their energy demands?
First, how much power are we talking?
ABC57's Annie Kate sat down with Bill Schalliol to ask.
"How big of a power user is Amazon Web Services, compared to, say, the Town of New Carlisle?"
"It would be apples and oranges," he said, "it's such a big power user in comparison."
"The AWS site over in the west side of the county will pull probably as much electricity as the City of South Bend is using currently," said local environmentalist, Steve Francis.
We might not have a straight answer (AWS declined ABC57's numerous requests for a sit-down interview), but we know there is so much demand for energy coming, Indiana Michigan Power plans to double.
"In a very short amount of time, we're going to double the size of our company," Smith said.
On-site at the AWS complex in New Carlisle, two specialized, high-grade substations are being built to process and clean all the electricity powering the servers.
"They are basically big warehouses of server farms that run behind the scenes for AI and the cloud," Francis said. "So, they need baseload power, or they need power 24/7. They need to have backup power as well, which is another issue."
Francis lives near Juday Creek, near Microsoft's data center site. He is with the SEED Consultancy, SEED standing for Sustainable Energy and Economic Development, and remains an involved advocate in the community.
He has immense concerns not only with the level of development -- "I think we're losing agricultural land, we're losing greenspace"-- but with the ways in which Indiana plans to meet these energy demands.
"We were on a trajectory to reduce our carbon in the United States, close to zero by 2050, specifically in the energy sector. And what Indiana has done by promoting data centers coming to Indiana is to completely upend that."
So, how exactly will St. Joseph County meet these demands?
"I think it's something Indiana is not prepared for, and the utilities are really playing catch up," Francis said.
Annie Kate set out with ABC57 Chief Meteorologist, Tom Coomes, to go straight to the source, sitting down with Smith.
"So first, let me say, this is a really exciting time to work in the utilities sector because everything is changing," said Stephanny Smith. "In terms of how we generate power... The amount of energy being generated, being demanded, that is all new."
I&M is the confirmed sole provider of power to the AWS data center, so the company must drastically increase its capacity, and generation, and fast.
"What is capacity and what is generation?" Coomes asked.
"Capacity is how much energy we are able to take on as a system. Generation is the power, the energy that we're actually creating," Smith said.
The company embraces an "all of the above" approach, she says, diversifying the grid's energy sources.
"So right now, we are generating about 4 or 4.5 GW as a company," Smith said. "So, it's 2025, right, by about 2030, 2031, that's going to go up to about 8GW. So, in a very short amount of time, we're going to double the size of our company."
It's not just AWS, but that growing number of what she calls "large-load customers."
"Where does the increase in generation come from?" Coomes asked.
"So, the increase in generation really comes from adding nuclear to that. So, we will be pursuing relicensing Cook Nuclear in Southwest Michigan,” Smith said.
Nuclear currently provides over half of I&M's power, a carbon-free source of baseload energy to the grid.
They also want to build new nuclear technology called small modular reactors, starting with one in Spencer County.
Operations are still about a decade away, so in the meantime, back to natural gas it is.
"Natural gas produces millions of tons of carbon," said Francis. "They are going to install solar and wind but it's not nearly enough to be able to meet those carbon targets."
According to I&M's Integrated Resource Plan, the company will add solar and wind to their generation, but much of the power increase will come from natural gas.
"We submitted another filing to basically make our case for why we need to purchase a natural gas plant just south of Toledo," Smith said.
At the same time, I&M is phasing out its coal production. Its Rockport coal plant will be shut down by the end of 2028, replaced by the efforts to build small modular reactors.
"We have not made any official change to our climate goals,” Smith said.
Our power worries go beyond the effects on carbon in our atmosphere, to the effects on consumers, customers buying electricity to turn on the lights.
"Because, at the end of the day, the customer just wants to know, 'When I flip on the light switch, will the lights come on?" Smith said. "If it's 90 degrees and humid, will the air conditioner run? If it's 20 degrees and cold will my heat turn on?'"
"We've had a lot of people that have the concern that, 'You're going to provide power to the data center before me. They pay more, I pay less," Schalliol said. "There's a lot of different groups that provide power to different areas. So, it's not as easy as, 'this project's going to go in, it's going to cause me blackouts.'"
"It shouldn't ever get to that point if the power companies have managed their power properly," Schalliol continued.
Still, it leaves ratepayers like Francis worried.
"We're going to suffer from all the costs, and yet, they're going to benefit from the business that's provided by building the data centers here," he said.
However, according to Smith, I&M already codified customer protections.
"I can't tell you that your bill's going to go down because these projects are coming in, I can't promise you that, but what I can tell you is that these projects won't hurt you as a customer," Smith said.
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission approved what's called a "large-load tariff" settlement in February this year. In short, if a company backs out of these plans, it’s on them.
"If, say, in a few years, technology completely changes, and requires less energy, or a company decides not to come in, and they've already done, you know, all these investments, or we've done the investments, those costs can't fall back onto our existing customers," Smith said.
"And so, we've codified this for this large-load tariff, that that company, then, is responsible for, those costs."
After multiple interview requests, ABC57 was unable to get a sit-down interview with a representative from Amazon Web Services. However, we got a statement from a spokesperson that reads in part, "Where we require specific infrastructure to meet our needs, we work to make sure that we’re covering those costs and that they aren’t being passed on to other ratepayers.”
Our energy grid is changing, expanding, and modernizing, because ready or not, data centers are moving in, requiring a never-before-seen level of demand, as Michiana becomes, "The Silicon Prairie."