From Inquiry to Site in Service: What Five Data Center Utility Records Actually Mean

Utility planners are being asked to turn data center inquiries into load forecasts, infrastructure plans, tariffs, and service agreements. Public records make parts of that process visible, but only when each record is assigned the correct stage.

An option is not a service request. A service request is not an approved tariff. A tariff is not reserved capacity. A signed service agreement is not operating load. Construction is not full buildout.

Five records, five different stages

Indiana created a public stage model for large loads

Indiana Michigan Power filed a petition on July 19, 2024 seeking changes to its industrial tariff for new and expanding large loads. The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission approved a negotiated settlement on February 19, 2025. The provisions apply to loads of at least 70 MW at an individual site or 150 MW across aggregated sites.

The approved settlement requires a minimum 12-year contract term after a load ramp period of no more than five years. It sets billing minimums, collateral requirements, and capacity-reduction and termination provisions.

The most useful analytical feature is the reporting framework. I&M must distinguish expressed interest, internal transmission analysis, executed transmission letters, executed electric service agreements, and sites in service in its semiannual reporting. Those stages should not collapse into a generic project pipeline. The tariff establishes commercial rules, not reserved capacity for every inquiry.

Minnesota shows why a filed agreement remains a proposal

On April 14, 2026, Xcel Energy filed an electric service agreement with Echo Zone LLC for a proposed Pine Island data center. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission identifies Echo Zone as a Google subsidiary and the matter as Docket 26-170.

As of the audit date, public comment remained open through September 8, 2026. The Commission said it could approve, modify, or reject the agreement. The defensible status is filed for review, not approved service.

The PUC also explains that customer demand, construction cost, schedule, and negotiated rates can be submitted as trade-secret information. An absent public load number is therefore not publicly available, not zero. The official docket search remains the current source for later action.

Stillwater contains several distinct utility decisions

Stillwater Electric Utility serves the city. For OG&E to serve the proposed data center sites, the city required voter approval. The franchise proposition passed on November 5, 2024, according to the city project page. That vote authorized service. It was not a project-specific service agreement and did not show that infrastructure or generation was ready.

Google identified Stillwater in an August 13, 2025 announcement. On April 30, 2026, OG&E announced service agreements covering three Google data centers in Stillwater and Muskogee. It said Google would pay connection costs, contracted costs regardless of actual use, and its share of required generation. Google described its campuses as under construction.

A separate general tariff came later. OG&E filed a proposed extra-large-load tariff on June 18, 2026. Oklahoma Corporation Commission records show PUD2026-000046 opened on June 25. No final tariff order was located by August 2. Franchise authority, project agreements, construction, and a pending general tariff are four different records.

Mesa separates service commencement from full buildout

On May 17, 2021, the Mesa City Council approved Resolution 11680 by a 6 to 1 vote. It authorized development and sustainable water-service agreements with Redale LLC, including water allowances, maximum demands, and transfers of long-term storage credits. The council minutes preserve the action and vote, and a later city financial report linked the agreement to Meta.

Meta announced Mesa on August 12, 2021 and reported that the facility was serving traffic on January 30, 2025. The same update still described full buildout in future terms. The correct public status is operating, but not necessarily fully built. Contractual maximum demand and actual demand are different measurements.

Valparaiso keeps preliminary due diligence out of the load forecast

On January 9, 2025, the Valparaiso Redevelopment Commission approved an option agreement with Agincourt Investments. The municipal statement said the developer still needed to investigate NIPSCO power service and municipal water availability. Rezoning, land-use review, development agreements, and a purchase agreement would also have been required.

On March 13, officials stated that no project had been presented or approved. The commission unanimously terminated the option and released the escrowed funds, as recorded in the official packet and minutes. Nothing in this sequence reached the service-agreement stage. Treating the option or utility inquiry as forecast load would convert unresolved due diligence into fictitious demand.

Capacity should be modeled as a sequence

A useful infrastructure record should preserve the inquiry or application date, utility and territory, requested load if public, load basis, regulatory filing status, legal service authority, study status, agreement status, cost responsibility, construction, service commencement, full buildout, expiration or withdrawal, and last verification date.

The status vocabulary should be ordered but not treated as irreversible. A project can pause, shrink, expire, or withdraw after a late-stage record. An official projection should remain attributed to its utility, city, regulator, or sponsor.

What this audit supports

• Public utility and municipal records expose materially different stages in large-load development.
• Tariff terms can describe who bears cost and abandonment risk without reserving capacity for a named project.
• A public dataset can preserve unavailable values without silently converting them to zero.
• Service commencement and full buildout require separate status fields.
• Withdrawn preliminary inquiries belong in the same record universe as operating projects.

What it does not support

• No independent finding is made about generation, transmission, distribution, substation, water, or interconnection capacity.
• No tariff is treated as a project commitment, and no filed agreement is treated as regulator-approved.
• No service agreement proves actual or peak demand.
• No project is assumed to reach full buildout.
• No claim is made about earliest publication, investment value, or forecast accuracy.

Sources and method

Sources were checked through August 3, 2026. Each case was coded using the procedural status shown in its official record. Later company or city sources were used only to update project stage.

1. Indiana Michigan Power: IURC final order; approved settlement; semiannual report; current tariff book.
2. Minnesota: PUC data center and agreement page; Docket 26-170 search.
3. Stillwater and Oklahoma: city project and franchise page; OG&E service-agreement announcement; Google construction update; OG&E tariff proposal; OCC docket result.
4. Mesa: Resolution 11680; council minutes; city financial report; Meta operating update.
5. Valparaiso: city statement; commission packet and minutes.

This is a public-record planning example. It is not an engineering study, capacity assessment, regulatory opinion, investment recommendation, or forecast of project demand.