EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure says it will pay for the generation, transmission and delivery infrastructure needed to serve its expanding data center campuses, a commitment that can reach hundreds of millions of dollars at gigawatt scale.
Julie Brewer, the company executive vice president of finance, told Data Center Knowledge that EdgeCore expects to bear 100% of those costs. She estimated that power-related infrastructure accounts for roughly 5% to 10% of a project upfront cost. Five years ago a large data center might have required about 25 MW, she said. EdgeCore now focuses on campuses exceeding 300 MW. Its pipeline includes a site of more than 1.1 GW in Louisa County, Virginia, representing over $17 billion in planned investment, a 496 MW campus in Mesa, Arizona, and a 216 MW campus in Reno, Nevada.
Where the cost line falls remains unsettled. Neil Osnato, founder of Persistence Analytics Group, said assigning a new substation, transformer bank or transmission line to a single customer is relatively simple, while upstream effects on congestion, reserve requirements and regional planning are harder to attribute. "It is realistic for a data center to commit to paying all identifiable customer-specific incremental costs," Osnato said.
Salt River Project offers one working model. The Arizona utility introduced a Large Customer Integration Process in 2025 that identifies required upgrades and bills prospective large-load customers upfront. Its updated E-67 price plan requires customers with at least 20 MW of forecast demand to meet minimum billing thresholds based on actual use or 80% of forecast demand, which limits the risk of building generation for loads that never materialize.
Source: Data Center Knowledge - https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/data-center-construction/edgecore-says-data-centers-should-pay-their-own-power-costs