A solution to the problem of paying for data centre power? Unpacking AWS’s recent 3 gigawatt deal with NIPSCO

Sometimes I don't understand how this is so complicated. I'm in the business of buying electricity. I know I have to pay for it. Utilities are in the business of deploying capital, generating a return on that capital, and then operating in a reliable manner. If there's power and no data center, then we're not serving our customers. If there's a data center without power, we're not serving our customers. If you were to think about lessons that could be learned, and I guess for the industry as a whole to think about how to add data center capacity, the right way and get it powered the right way, what would you say? This episode is brought to you by ACORE, the non-partisan, non-profit organisation, uniquely operating at the intersection of energy affordability, reliability, and clean energy deployment. ACORE is focused on strengthening the electric grid and driving clean energy investment that delivers for the American people. ACORE's membership includes industry leaders across the clean energy economy. Utility scale clean energy investment has been booming in the US. Nearly 80% of it was finance developed, owned, equipped, or contracted by ACORE members. Visit www.acore.org to learn more about ACORE's work and upcoming events, like the ACORE Finance Forum on May 12th of the 13th in New York City. Wood McKenzie's solar and energy storage summit is back in Denver on 29th to 30th of April, 2026. It's co-located with a brand new North American power and renewables forum featuring senior speakers from across the US power sector. Joy-Dave for 450 senior leaders from US power developers, utilities and independent power producers will be coming together to address the industry's biggest challenges. From navigating life after tax credits to tackling the low growth boom, discover how the energy mixes evolving and how the US will meet surging demand for power. Seats are limited, so register now at woodmack.com. Hello and welcome to The Energy Gang, a discussion show from Wood McKenzie about the fast changing world of energy. I'm Nick Crookes. And on this show today we're going to be talking about data centers, very specifically. We're going to be talking about their demand for power, the investment that's needed to meet that demand and how that investment gets paid for. And we have I think a unique line up to discuss that issue. I'm joined by representatives from one of the biggest data center operators, AWS Amazon Web Services and also from a leading utility Nipsco, the Northern Indiana Public Service Company, which is part of the NICE or SCROOP. So it's great pleasure to welcome to the show Brandon Euer, who's the head of America's Power and Water at AWS. Hello, Brandon, welcome to the show. Hi there Ed, thanks for having me. So as I'm sure you know, one of the things you was led to do with new people on the show is getting to talk to us a little bit about their careers in energy and how they got to the roles they now hold. So what's your story? What was the path that led you to that role in AWS? You know, I started my time in the military. I'm a Navy nuke, so I've operated nuclear reactors underwater, lived in a mission, critical kind of world. I stepped out of the military into the private non-regulated energy space, operating some thermal energy assets on behalf of Brookfield asset management, then found myself into Amazon web services, where I've gotten the privilege of leading everything from engineering data center designs to leading hardware engineering designs and scaling out storage devices and high performance compute and then operating the fleet there before I found myself in this role a few years ago, back kind of like the bread and butter into the energy space. And that's been a nice connection to understand the data center space from the chip all the way up through the substation now allows us to really dive in and look at where we can find the most efficiency and then go and find awesome partners like Nipsco here to help power our growth that we're seeing. Absolutely great introduction then to Vince Perisi who is the president and chief operating officer of Nipsco. Hello Vince, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having us on brand of good to see you. And what's your story then? How did you get to the role you now hold at Nipsco? I wish I had the background that Brandon has minds a little different. I've actually been around the industry or in the industry for about 26 years now started at a law firm actually working external counsel for a couple of different energy companies ultimately went in house as general counsel for the first company I worked with for about 14 years into another utility worked there for several years and then I've been a nice source now for just about just about a dozen. So you're two companies have formed a really interesting partnership and want to get into that in a moment that's the main thing we're going to be talking about on this show. Just before we get into these details though I wanted to talk a little bit about the backdrop this setup getting the two of you on the show together reminded me of that song from the musical Oklahoma you know the farmer and the cowman should be friends in the sense that the relationship between utilities and their customers on one side and the data center developers and the operators on the other is I think it's fair to say increasingly contentious. I was looking at a story the other day I think there are now at least six states where legislation to limit data center development has been proposed one of those states in fact is actually Oklahoma. So you are seeing a lot of concerns about electricity bills and you can see concerns about the link between data center development and electricity bills and people often say what we worried about is this issue that new investment is required to provide the power both generation and the grid infrastructure needed to support those data centers and the cost of that is being spread among the customer base and it's putting up bills for everybody. So Brandon I wanted to talk to you about that first really I mean where do you stand on these concerns do you think this is a legitimate thing for people to be worried about. Before we dive into the impact of data centers and rates which is a very complex topic and happy to dive in there I think it's best to take a step back and make sure that listeners understand what data centers even do and how often you actually interact with the data center every time that you you know place an online order or bank online or go to your doctor and they pull up charts dispatching first responders from a 911 call utilizing social media working remotely on filming this podcast you're interacting with a data center and they have just become an invisible digital backbone to connect our society to drive our economy and we've started to take them for granted much like we take for granted the utilities that connect us when we turn on our light switches and our lights work where we open a tap and water comes out of it it just works so I'd like to remind all the the listeners and the viewers that to be conscious of how often you're interacting with the data center where it's seeing a lot of growth for AI and I think a lot of people may believe that all the growth is just AI and that that's simply not the case especially here at Amazon Web Services and I'd be remiss you know I left out one use case less than 24 hours after the Super Bowl where the Seahawks were victorious later gets next chance stats you know run many stats there so right big news because you're talking to us from Seattle right now I do I am from Seattle and congratulations to see Hawks fan for many years so it was a fun night for us to take but anyways so the data centers are used day in and day out and there's a lot of growth going on however there's also a lot of growth in the electrical sector and maybe vents can talk to this a little bit later data centers are a big part of it but we're you know ensuring manufacturing and we're electrifying vehicles and we're electrifying homes so we're continuing to electrify more parts of society and that all is leading to to a lot of growth now that's where I'm fortunate enough to work at a company where we want to do what's right for our customers and we put customers at the front of everything that we do and when we go and build a data center in a community we know that we're building around our customers around our employees so we want to do what's right long term personally my parents and my grandparents live in Virginia Virginia is an area with some of our biggest data center concentration I don't I don't want my family paying the burden from data centers so we take time to partner with the utilities to design you know deals and rate structures and that can power our operations while doing it responsibly so look forward to talking a little bit more about how we work here with nipsco to structure this really first of a kind deal and I don't think it'll be the last time we do something like that yeah as you say let's get into the details at the moment but maybe just to talk to you Vince a bit about your kind of starting point on this when you think about demand growth potential for new data center investment how will that get paid for what are the big issues that you see you know when we step back as a utility and look at our you know service territory we you know we serve the top third of Indiana and really concentrate a lot of our our customers in that northwest quadrant and for years we were not seeing a whole lot of growth if we were it was it was it was smaller growth we're starting to see as branded pointed out a significant new business growth in the manufacturing areas and cold storage kind of over our entire system and then also a desire for more energy on data centers so it's really actually kind of an exciting time in the industry we know we have been serving customers in Indiana for over 100 years those communities that we serve the customers that we serve it's pretty critical to us that we were thoughtful when we approach this this new segment of business that we were doing it in a way that took that all into consideration we live in these communities we have over 3100 people that work for our company and live in northern Indiana and so we're in all the communities that we serve the brandens point you know you know I live in the community and I would want to make sure that if our customers are ultimately going to to pay for something that it's it's benefiting them that that they're seeing they're seeing the the value of that and where we can insulate our customers from from costs thinking about your point use the word exciting in terms of the opportunities that have been created and I think a lot of people would agree with that I think certainly there is a lot of excitement in the utility industry and the power industry in general about what's happening I also see what's the right word for it to describe the emotion that people feel alarm concern certainly a maybe alarm's a bit too strong but certainly some big worries that people have it's interesting when you talk about wanting to make the most of this opportunity I would say there are definitely utilities across the country that take different positions on this I have spoken to some certainly who would say things like we don't really want any new data centers in our territory we don't want rapid growth in demand we couldn't cope with it you hear about stories I was talking to someone connected to a data center developer recently who was saying that they can't get utilities to answer the phone when they talk about locating in their territory because they just think there will be too many problems associated with trying to serve that new load and they're so worried about the impact on existing customers so what leads you to take what sounds like a broadly positive attitude the way you're describing it for us it really starts with the partnership for for us a partner like Amazon who's really approaching this the same way that we are a hundred years in a community is a long time to be part of a community we plan to be here for another hundred years and so it really starts with finding partners that want to understand where customers might have concerns or where there might be some questions so we can start with the answers because I think part of the part of what you're hearing or what you're describing is just comes from this being new this is different this is not something that we've seen in northwest Indiana in in you know in the recent past and so it takes a little bit more time sometimes to be able to have those conversations with customers with communities to kind of help explain and understand it for us we saw this is an opportunity to put pretty significant investment back into our community it's really important that we have the right kind of generation of capacity to serve our customers you know jobs and good jobs and growth jobs and jobs that focus on development and building the infrastructure all those from our perspective are really positive to your point Vince then about many utilities just not being used to the kinds of change that now being asked to contemplate as it made a big difference to your business I mean I hear stories about usually is really not having the organizational capacity to handle potentially very rapid growth not having a process for connecting up new large loads and so and it seems like it's quite a radical shift not just in mentality but in the whole of the business that might be required to accommodate this kind of change it is a little different I had historically I think maybe utilities are thought of as maybe moving a little bit more methodically or a little slower you know we I'm blessed to work with some folks inside the company that have a broader view of the market and the ability to move rapidly to find quick good answers to questions and then move forward with it maybe a little bit more of that sort of commercial mindset and again back to partnerships having a partner like Amazon that's able to come to the table and really kind of work with that healthy tension in the areas where they need answers to questions we need to be able to move quickly so it is different not just with respect to sort of the internal philosophy and how we move things through our processes differently and quicker but also in a regulated construct which this is being able to work with external stakeholders differently than maybe we have historically to come up with ways to be able to meet this need but to do it in a way that's sensitive and respectful to our customers that meets what the state needs to do but then also meets the pace that Amazon needs to be able to meet the demand that they see so let's talk about this partnership then because what you agreed back in November of last year was that Amazon and Nipsco would work together to support data center development the agreement includes three gigawatts of new generation capacity being added and instead of pushing bills up for the rest of Nipsco's customers it's expected to save them about a billion dollars over the next 15 years so Brandon could you tell us a bit about this agreement I mean it sounds like everything you've been talking about in terms of getting the new power capacity getting the data centers built but not imposing a burden on the broader customer base how do you do that here we saw an idea to create a separate entity it's called the genco here that would fund all of the generation assets and you already called out you know it's 3000 megawatts of electrical generation to support 2400 megawatts of data center load so there's your point right there we're already over building to ensure that there's the reliability and the resiliency for those in industry you won't always want some sort of reserve margin so we built that in from the onset you know how do we ring fence that such that there's a bilateral agreement that we can get to commercially where Nipsco is incentivized or the genco rolling up through is incentivized to deliver on time and you know put some skin in the game so we were able to come to a commercial construct where we were okay with paying the genco to perform so if they meet our performance targets and dates they'll make more than a regulated rate of return happy to do that and then if they don't conversely like if we get delayed then there's you know a little bit of downside for them so it's a mutually incentivized structure where they get to put their money where their mouth is we put our money where our mouth is and that was just the construct from the like day one when we started on this deal to say hey look we're we're fine let's go and do this now we've had to work together with a regulatory process and that's where we we came up with the the idea of refunding over a billion dollars over the term of this structure because we will use some existing transmission in fact the existing transmission capacity is how we identified this as an opportunity the deal structure is relatively simple there's there's some public filings people can go look at if they want but the short of it is they build generation we get the capacity and you know we benefit the the local community not only through the electoral savings but for the economic development through the jobs that we will create through the secondary jobs that are created so there's a lot to really like about the growth to your earlier comment you know some utilities might not return a call to some developers like anything not all data centers are created equal we use some very good developers throughout the country to help us sometimes we self-perform but not all data centers are created equal at the end of the day not of them we're all running a tier one service like a AWS on top of them so I think that what I would like some listeners to take away is to you know be selective here when you understand like what are the bigger operators that are going to come and be you know operate for 15 20 years long term be part of the community be there for the long haul versus you know something that's a little bit more opportunistic and only with the flavor of the day from a development perspective maybe there should be some concern there but you know when you're dealing with somebody who's been around for nearly 20 years investing tens of billions of dollars in local communities and getting to see the real impact I think there's a difference in that development opportunity is it fair to say that the cost is higher than it might have been because you've got to get that set of arrangements in place but on the other hand then you are getting sort of buy in support from the utility certainty about being able to develop that capacity and you know you're going to be able to bring your data centers online is that the tradeoff Ed we always work backwards from our customers at Amazon and we know of Amazon web service customers want more services at reduced cost faster so we are very very diligent when it comes to how we structure these deals from a cost perspective and it's always a balance this wasn't a blank check this was actually a super transparent bilateral agreement so no I don't think that the the cost structures here are higher and there's always going to be some level of of over build and reserve margin in any deal this deal we just actually got to work and partner and size the the components even with with the genco to meet our risk and cost profile on behalf of our customers so there's not a large premium a little a higher return than a regulated rate of return for the assurance of power delivery that's a you know small tradeoff to make to ensure that the power is available for our customers when they want them but no in general this this is not a quote unquote premium to what we would be able to get through another regulated market and there are regulated markets where data centers can be built and help build the grid under a tariff structure that don't cost shift as well there's plenty of reports out there that that show that so we're open to several different methods to get to the commercial construct and this genco I think is the most clear and transparent way for us to do it that both parties were we're happy with there's everywhere else in the United States and then there's Texas it's big it's proud it's got a lot going on and it takes a daily news show to keep up with it all the Texas standard tackles politics business and tech the arts and the people and things that make Texas unique it's smart fast-paced relevant and sometimes even a little fun after all it's the news from a Texas perspective subscribe to the Texas standard wherever you get your podcasts to support how do we capitalize on unprecedented load growth we're permitting delays stall development we'll cover energy storage business models supply chain challenges and emerging technology as such as virtual power plants and new for 2026 a dedicated grid infrastructure stream of the launch of our North American power and renewables forum exploring how the wider energy mixes evolving to meet surging demand for power whether you're a developer the utility leader or investor don't miss this opportunity to connect with peers and shape strategy for 2026 learn more and register at woodmack.com it's a really interesting and I'll come on in a moment to talk about some lessons for other parts of the country and whether this model is replicable but first maybe Vince just to go to you on this from nipsco's perspective why does this kind of partnership work for you we have about 50000 electric customers on our our system about 1.4 million if you think about combo so we also serve natural gas customers across the top third of the state it's about it's just under 2.4 gigawatts for our entire electric system right now this deal doubles that size so for us one of the things that we wanted to make sure we were able to do was create something that takes that into consideration right that's a significant amount of new new load with a single customer well as Brandon pointed out we'll build three gigawatts to serve that 2.4 the way I look at that is that really provides that assurance that when they need the 2.4 that 2.4 is there and it's ready to be able to serve them but three gigawatts for a 2.4 gigawatts system is a pretty significant increase and so again stepping back to think about well how do we do that in a way that is thoughtful about our existing customer base but meets the needs of of AWS but also is reproducible we want to do additional load like this with the right partners more potentially with with Amazon at some point so for us it was something that we need to be able to build that could really meet the need just today but then the next load the next load and do it in a way that's responsible for our communities is it right for every utility out there every utility is going to have to make that decision for themselves we do think this is unique and it's different and Brandon mentioned it multiple times it's very identifiable it's very simple to see how our gen co-ultimately is going to hold what I think we've announced is about six to seven billion dollars of new investment that is completely separated from our customer base so that when somebody wants to look at the books in records they can see very clearly how our customers aren't paying for that but then benefiting to the tune of about a billion dollars over the 15 years of the contract so kind of just hits on every note for us you sometimes hear the clay made that it's all about energy that energy is kind of the number one most important factor in terms of data center location notes availability of energy is really what matters most is that true so I have the very distinct pleasure of leading an organization of energy and water professionals at AWS probably some of the brightest in the industry and super humbled to work with and for them and like think day in and day out about how we're going to power data centers and ever going to bring water and then help hit our water positive goals that said if there's power and no data center then we're not serving our customers if there's a data center without power we're not serving our customers if we you know can't build and and find a workforce they're we're not serving our customers so there's a lot of things that need to come together from the power the water the land the fiber the workforce the skilled labor the supply chains then to get everything into a market so powers definitely a focus but it's not the only thing because it again you've got to get power substation medium voltage distribution you have to get a shell built the foundations the steel workers then you have to run electrical and yeah there and then you actually have to start landing racks and then running cabling to build the networking and build the services like there's a lot that goes into building a data center so power is definitely a focus and that's what I spend most of my life thinking about right now it really does take a take everybody to come together and go and inform a community on on what are we building here de-mystify it to the maximum extent practical engaging at the local the state and even at the federal level and then as we need to go and you know work with local jurisdictions sometimes you know we if we need to go and build a fire station sometimes we do that in a community yeah there's there's a lot to it powers important but but there's a lot more to it than just that right so we want to talk about some of the challenges you might have faced one of the issues that is much talked about in the industry is the potential mismatch between time horizons tick industry of course changing very rapidly not least because of AI who knows where that's going to be in five years but for the utilities they're building assets that have multi decade operating lives they want stability and to know that those assets are still going to be earning return and useful 20 30 however many years from now in this partnership you seem to have compromised on this commitment it's 15 years right it was an initial 15 years anyway although the relationship could last longer how did you get to that kind of timescale why does 15 years work view both when we build a building the building itself is designed for you know 30 plus your life while the IT equipment will get changed out every four five six seven years the building itself like is a substantial investment in of itself when we make investments we we make them for the long term as well however you know things will change over over time so we you know we try to get to a point where we can ensure that there's a sufficient amortization schedule on such that costs can be recouped but also you know give flexibility where needed as things change compute power has changed what we can carry around in our pockets today has changed in what we could do you know five to ten years ago and we expect that to continue along the way so again the really simple recipe we've got here at Amazon think about our customers and work backwards from that and that that's kind of our guiding principle every day and you know we were able to get to a structure that worked for commercially for nice source yeah what is 15 years work for you then Vince like Brandon said we invest in in assets that have different lengths you know different amortization periods some shorter some longer so you know the assets can be out there for for 40 years or 20 depending on on what it is but you know the agreement allows for additional time if ultimately we get to that place in another 15 years makes sense that's great we can work with different time horizons but when you start to go past that 15 20 year at not speaking for Amazon you start to think about different different risks different concepts and components it it changes the dynamic a bit not that you couldn't work through it but it certainly creates a different set of you know risks and thoughts that you have to kind of go through and so for us 15 years made it enough sense given the kind of assets will be developing we continue to have sustainability goals as does Amazon so it gives us some time to continue to work through those components to make sure that we're getting you know getting to the right place with all of that but at the same time you know you build something that can last for 30 or 40 years anything shorter than 15 years also starts to look a little bit just changes the risk profile and ultimately then the negotiation so another big challenge then is something that again a lot of people are talking about in the electricity industry at the moment which is equipment shortages and the difficulty of procuring turbines transform and switch gear whatever it might be how is the procurement process going you're going to be able to get those gas turbine to get to be able to get those batteries one of the great things about this new structure is it lets us do with things a little differently than when we do through what has historically been kind of a process where you would kind of methodically go through some things in certain phases at the commission because of the genco and the alternative regulatory process that we have and the negotiation with Amazon we were able to go out and procure long lead time equipment while we were working through the process of negotiating the terms and conditions of the deal and so it really let us be at a place where we could meet all of the the time horizons that ultimately Amazon needs to meet its customers needs because of this different structure that we have in our ability to go out and lock down that long lead time equipment and that's a little handle on the nips case like that a wsu don't need to worry about that you just let them do their job not for this project they're they're doing their job you know we we work together to make sure that they were comfortable enough we could de-risk throughout the negotiation so that they could put down deposits where needed along the way and we have plenty of our equipment that we need to go out procure for the the build out here so we get to go focus there however like we will partner if if something happens along the way and you know we need to use a reservation for a breaker or a transformer or something and we can like we will like we are very we've built a lot of trust with Benson team throughout this discussion so if something happens like we'll work and adapt and continue to move forward so Vince you mentioned regulation that seems like it's going to be a very critical factor in this when you think about the traditional principles of utility regulation in terms of obligation to serve in terms of non-discrimination I guess in particular being a principle that is generally applied this is what bending that because Amazon is going to be treated differently as a customer from other customers in your territory is that right I mean I suppose what I'm asking is was this a difficult pill for the regulators to swallow did you need a lot of discussions with regulators to get them comfortable with this how did that work we're fortunate to be in a state where our you know the governor our IURC that's our regulatory commission legislature all were in a place where they really like to see this large load growth happen and we have alternative regulatory structures in the state so we came at it from a good place where we have the ability to think a little differently about how we approach it this is still very regulated approach and a regulated offering that we're making and the pieces of it aren't really different than what historically we've we've been able to do a special contract is not something new that's something that you can do in lots of utilities across the country including in Indiana for lots of years Genco itself is not new it's different so it's regulated a little differently the Genco approach and kind of it's holistically we think that is new we haven't seen all the different parts put together the way that we have but Genco continues to be a regulated utility with state the difference here is that Genco's only customer is going to be nipsco so Genco won't serve any retail customers all those customers will be served by nipsco we'll take on that responsibility just like we would for any customer and we'll treat Amazon like any customer that we would have on our system so they get the same kind of protections from that perspective but they're getting a special contract and negotiated approach as opposed to sort of a tariff approach which is how we would do things a little bit more historically so it really was kind of taking different pieces applying them in a state where we had really good support from the governor from the legislature from the regulatory commissioners to think about this a little differently so we could kind of hit on all those marks that we've talked about and do it in a way with the right partner we could feel pretty confident that we be successful but nipsco as a whole is part of my say is that correct? yeah that's right and so just like any assets that we have as part of myso generation will be produced into myso ultimately myso will will ultimately provide us the signals in the direction when it comes to running the different units or dispatching into the market obviously our obligation is to have the capacity to meet Amazon's needs and that's the purpose of Genco and the purpose of separating the assets but then still having them in the myso market Amazon will be able to get energy from the myso market as well so they've got that balance that is provided by having a larger RTO you know ISO to be able to provide not just the energy that ultimately we're producing but broader energy that can come from the market a lot of different ways and so I think it provides more resiliency and more stability both for Amazon but then for also our customer base we talked a bit about it before when you think about 3000 megawatts a new dispatchable energy going into the market at really any point that hardens the grid it hardens our system it makes myso more confident with respect to the the generation assets that they're going to have out there and hopefully makes Amazon more more confident because not only do they have nipsco standing behind it but we've got this larger myso+ standing behind it as well yeah was that important for you then Brandon to have that grid connection I mean obviously there's a lot of talk nowadays about behind the meter power bring your own power all those kinds of ideas being talked about a lot but for you the grid was the right way to go I'm glad you framed it like that Ed yeah there's a there is a lot of talk around all different ways to connect the data center like I said earlier we we got a really simple philosophy here work backwards from the customer what does a customer want more services less cost so we we continue to evaluate all sorts of structures and continue to find that being connected to the grid is the most cost effective way to scale up now might we do things differently you know in certain pockets sure but again that that's going to balance cost with speed to market so yeah I mean putting an asset onto the grid it can benefit other people it can sell into the the market these are going to be new modern high-efficient assets and that's something else that I think like a lot gets lost in the narrative about data center growth is the electrical system is not like a commodity pick whatever rage whatever hit gift was around Christmas time that you know there's 500 of these units therefore the price of them goes up through the roof because there's limited supply and demand a majority of the electrical infrastructure is a fixed cost so when you shove more units of electricity through it you can spread that fixed cost over a greater greater unit base and you know on top of adding infrastructure that's making it more reliable now you know if there's transmission upgrades that need to be happen it's you know spread over a larger base so there's a lot of benefit to these structures that people may not necessarily see and you won't always see in the form of a bill but it's now preventing something like a lot of our transmission was built in the 50s and 60s the stuff won't last forever it's going to have to be upgraded eventually like re-conductoring at least is happening throughout many parts of the country and that upgrade like if if we trigger it and we fund it fine and if it benefits everybody else and doesn't require cost to go up great like we're happy to support so that's happening here with this deal and you know we're happy to be apart and contribute yeah absolutely and actually as you say when you look around the country at what's been driving electricity bills up until now actually exactly that issue of replacing aging infrastructures probably been the single biggest contributor to that in recent years one other thing that's much talked about Brandon just want to get your view on flexible loads making data-centered and flexible loads talked about as part of the solution to getting loads onto the grid quickly because you can obviously provide services of the grid it can be a big help if the load is flexible and as you're saying can help make more efficient use of existing infrastructure is that part of the package here serving AWS customers is different than say a Bitcoin mining facility a Bitcoin mining facility can be turned off you can stop and start work loads with relatively small impact our data centers not so much our customers decide when to use them we guarantee their availability we design them for reliability we design them for availability we're not an interoperable load however we are starting to work with different utilities around the country and we find that if we can accelerate capacity by determining that you know we could participate in a demand response or load flexibility that we will do so now we do build generation for our majority of our data centers have backup emergency generation and if called upon in a true grid emergency like yes we will run our assets and you know protect our customers while protecting the grid but at the end of the day we don't really see data centers as a flexible load we are continuing to evaluate on a case by case basis where possible with certain pocket but no this deal from day one has been a firm load like we're going to go and serve 2400 megawatts that's why we you know agreed to building 3000 megawatts of generation so that we can have that that firm load there right and as you say that running backup generation at the time of grid emergency that's what something you can do for a few days if you hours in a year that's absolutely not regular practice right exactly I don't know about a few days you know that that would all depend on on circumstances but yeah we focus on making sure that our customers have the capacity when they want to so let's talk about lessons then and what you've done here as a potential model for other utilities I don't know Brandon if you want to be giving away trade secrets processes if you say too much you know this is helping your competitors work out how to get their own projects advanced but if you were to think about lessons that could be learned and I guess for the industry as a whole to think about how to add data center capacity the right way and get it powered the right way what would you say and I don't know that there is really a right way if I'm going to be very honest with you and pretty humble here too because it took a lot of people to make this project successful and this is one way we're very happy with it to Vince's point if we can figure out a way to grow and do this again like would we do it again probably so but there's still a lot left to go and build we have lots of work ahead of us now like signing the paper is one part of it and now we've got a lot of steel and concrete and equipment to go build so I think this is one way and what I would say for you know anybody listening is it's just honesty and transparency or the two things that helped us get through this sometimes I don't understand how this is so complicated like I'm in the business of buying electricity I know I have to pay for it utilities are in the business of deploying capital generating a return on that capital and then operating in a reliable manner we just take that mindset and we go simple nothing to it nothing to it so Vince what do you think that in terms of what lessons you think could be learned by utilities as elsewhere in the country maybe elsewhere in the world yeah I think Brandon makes a good point this is not the only way to do it it's the right way for us to do it in this moment to do it at the size and this level and scale and certainly for us reproducible right so we can go out and do it again but it also let us do it in a way where we don't have the special contract approved yet that's still in the regulated process yet we've already taken significant steps forward to be able to meet the the demand and the and the below when Amazon needs it and so I think it is it's it's continued conversations right would just continue collaboration a lot of trust that's been built in this relationship between us and Amazon which I think is kind of critical because when you are taking those steps in advance of kind of pieces the traditionally you would have in place you've got to have a lot of trust with the partner and you know I think that's a good thing these have been they've been great negotiations but to Brandon's point it took time and a lot of really talented people spending a lot of long hours working through the details of this and it's gotten us to a I think a really good place we now need to perform right to meet those expectations Brandon and the team have a lot of work to do to do their pieces and parts of it as well but we talk every day and we our teams are communicating all the time because there's it was a lot of work to get to where we are and it was just the start there's a lot more work to do from here to to ultimately then meet the needs of of this customer as well as continuing to meet the needs of our communities right and so Brandon just going back to your point then just to be clear about this we should not expect dozens more examples like this these similar partnerships with the utilities to be cropping up all over the country yeah I love to speculate a number that would happen but again like I said I would do this again in this structure and where the regulatory framework works and the partnership exists probably do it again but you know there's many ways to to make this happen and you know we're happy with this one and we'll continue to look for other ways to do it here here at Amazon we tend to not like rest on our laurels and think that just because we've done something one way is the only is the right way to do it so we'll continue to try to disconfirm our belief that this was the right way and look look around corners and do what's best for for the customers monitor very interesting well certainly hope you'll come back and talk to us again when the next deal comes up but as you say you're talking about some completely different model but definitely be very interesting to hear about that for now though unfortunately we do have to leave it there many thanks Brandon thanks go hawks absolutely many thanks Vince thank you I'd really appreciate down brand and great seniors always yeah yeah it's been great talking to you both all the best with your partnership and the projects you're going to be developing there many thanks to our producers Stuart Duffy Toby begins Gilchrist and Dan Kotroll out above all as ever many thanks to all of you for listening we really value your feedback please do keep that coming and we'll be back soon with all the latest news and views on the future of energy until then goodbye