Consumer advocates warn Missouri lacks data center cost safeguards, but regulators disagree

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Large-scale data center projects are popping in rural areas of Mid-Missouri, and opposition has formed to battle them.

However, local opponents so far have had little success in stopping tech giants such as Amazon and Google from building in Mid-Missouri.

Among the major concerns cited by opponents of data centers is the huge energy demand of many of these facilities. Will that demand drive up costs for regular consumers?

The Consumers Council of Missouri believes state regulators do not have strong enough safeguards in place to ensure data center power costs are not falling back on the average Missouri ratepayer.

"The decision makers in Missouri have tended to err on the side of promoting data centers rather than protecting the public," Consumer Council of Missouri Executive Director John Coffman said. "It's an ongoing regulatory battle."

Coffman teaches energy utility law as an adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and represents the Consumers Council as a consumer advocate attorney, fighting for lower electric rates for residential consumers across the state.

"We [the Consumers Council] really hope that everyday residential households are the priority for our electric system," Coffman said. "But as these data centers are being built out in a very sudden rate, the power companies are trying to plan ahead and building a whole new fleet of power plants. And so we're expecting many new power plants over the next few years. And that's going to bring a lot of stresses."

Coffman has attended several forums and discussions with private utility Ameren Missouri regarding data centers, where he has continued to advocate for tighter utility regulations. He said he is already seeing an increase in power plant demand drive up electric rates.

"There is a demand for power plant component parts. There's a demand for power plant construction workers. And this is raising the price of building power plants," Coffman said. "That is happening right now, even before the data centers are online and part of the grid."

ABC 17 News asked Ameren if recent or near-future spikes in rates are directly or indirectly tied to data centers.

"As we upgrade aging infrastructure, as we harden our system, as technology improves and we can more efficiently run a system that's more reliable, that obviously takes investment within the system," Senior Manager of Economic Development for Ameren Missouri James O'Mara said. "And so investing in new poles and wires and switches, more smart equipment, all of that is the investment that's driving some of those rate adjustments."

Ameren is seeking a rate hike of about 10% in 2027, it announced in a July 1 press release. Ameren filed a request with the Missouri Public Service Commission for a $343 million annual electric base rate increase that could raise average residential bills by roughly $13 a month.

According to O'Mara, data centers are not the reason for that request.

"That's just the general upgrades and investment that we're doing to the grid to ensure we have that reliable and affordable network that our customers need," O'Mara said.

He noted that rate increases are common, as improvements are being made across the entire grid.

But the Consumers Council said these "improvements" are linked to what's needed for data centers, and regardless, come at a time when the centers are predicted to drive up demand for energy in Missouri.

"There is an expectation that energy demand is going to double over a very short amount of time and that data centers could be as much as 50% of the load someday," Coffman said.

With such high data-driven projections, the council has urged state regulators to be precise in planning for the boom.

The role of 'large-load tariffs'

The biggest point of contention for the council is the requirements outlined in Ameren Missouri's large-load data center tariff. The Missouri Public Service Commission unanimously approved the contract in November 2025, and it went into effect on Dec. 4.

The agreement aims to shield customers from larger bills that could come from "large load customers" like data centers. The contract defines such customers as using 75 megawatts or more of energy per month.

These are some of the requirements of large load customers outlined in the contract:

• Sign a minimum 12-year contract with Ameren, with an option to extend the contract for five more years if the company scales up operations.
• Cover full grid hookup and infrastructure costs upfront.
• Pay a monthly demand charge set at 80% of their contracted maximum electric demand, even if they use less electricity than projected.
• Provide collateral funds equal to two years of minimum monthly bills, in the event of bankruptcy or closure.
• Give 36 months' written notice to end service and pay exit and early termination fees.

Similar protections were built into Ameren Missouri’s Powering Missouri Growth Plan. The plan, which was approved by the Public Service Commission in November 2025, is designed to ensure high-usage customers pay their fair share.

But the Consumers Council prefers much stricter rules. The consumer advocacy organization urged the Public Service Commission to require 15- to 20-year contract terms, a monthly demand charge of 95%, and 10 years' credit and collateral.

Under the large-load tariff, Ameren is also allowed "at its sole discretion" to aggregate loads and to grant variances without PSC approval. The Consumer Council opposes this, citing the need for regulatory oversight.

"There have been some rules, some guardrails put in place to make sure that data centers pay their fair share. But we're not sure that those guardrails are good enough. We've proposed more protective conditions," Coffman said.

Rich Germinder, senior policy adviser at the PSC, said the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge and Missouri Senate Bill 4 helped lay the groundwork for consumer protections.

Gov. Mike Kehoe signed Senate Bill 4 into law in April 2025. It changed the way the Public Service Commission deals with electric rates and the adoption of electric facilities in Missouri.

"One of the key components related to Senate Bill 4 was changing the integrated resource planning process," Germinder said. "Basically, understanding that we've, for the first time in several decades, have had large-load growth. So what do we need to do from a planning perspective to be more prepared?"

A critical component of the bill was the adoption of the large-load tariff requirement. The law requires Missouri's investor-owned utilities to establish a contract with the Public Service Commission for the procurement of utility or electric services. Germinder said the tariff ensures better planning and collaboration upfront.

"How do they deal with these large loads, these really large customers that use a lot of energy, use a lot of resources," Germinder said. "What are the terms and conditions that we need to have in place in order for those customers to come onto the system to protect other ratepayers?"

Consumer protections are also being discussed at the federal level with the Ratepayer Protection Act.

"It largely follows that same kind of model of establishing parameters for when you have large load come on that requires significant investment," Germinder said. "That they're paying their share upfront, that the residential ratepayers or the commercial ratepayers are not being saddled with the cost to serve that additional large load."

Even though these new laws have outlined some safeguards, Coffman said the rate at which large data centers are popping up across Missouri is worrisome.

Public records detail more than a dozen large-scale data center projects in the Show-Me State, with multiple proposed or under construction across Mid-Missouri.

Check back for updates, or tune in to ABC 17 News after Monday Night Football on KMIZ for the full in-depth report.