The queue for data center power keeps lengthening in the Midwest. Alliant Energy, the regulated utility serving about 1.5 million customers through subsidiaries in Iowa and Wisconsin, told its third quarter earnings call that it expects to sign 1 gigawatt of electric supply contracts with data center providers over the next six months. That is in addition to 3.4 gigawatts of contracted demand it already holds with the sector, including deals with Google, Meta and QTS.
Three of the five contracted projects are under construction. Google is taking transmission service in Iowa, and QTS Cedar Rapids is expected to complete commissioning of two buildings this quarter. Chief executive Lisa Barton said data centers support the company’s expectation of greater than 60 percent contracted demand growth by 2031, and that interest extends beyond hyperscalers to edge data centers and manufacturing expansion across Wisconsin and Iowa.
The financial plan has been rebuilt around the load. Alliant raised its capital spending programme for 2027 to 2030 by 19 percent to 15.9 billion dollars and lifted its expected investment growth rate for the period to 13 percent from 12 percent. The company also pointed to a 5.1 billion dollar Department of Energy loan, which it estimates will provide up to 1.2 billion dollars of cumulative customer savings over the 30 year life of the loans, a figure that matters politically because the standard objection to utility data center deals is that households end up funding the grid built for hyperscalers.
Barton said the company has an extreme level of confidence in securing the generation it needs. That confidence is now the sector’s central execution risk in miniature: the contracts are signed years before the generation and transmission behind them are built, and the growth rate investors are being offered depends on both arriving on schedule.