Duke Energy seeks take-or-pay power contracts for data centers

By Laila Kearney

NEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - Duke Energy is pursuing electricity supply contract terms with data centers that include take-or-pay and up-front infrastructure build out payments to guard against volatility in the energy-intensive computing industry, its chief financial officer told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based utility is requesting so-called "minimum take" clauses that require the centers to pay for a certain amount of power regardless of how much it uses, CFO Brian Savoy said. The company is also considering agreements that would require up-front contributions to build new power infrastructure for the centers.

"A few years ago, I would say these concepts weren't embraced by data centers or large loads because the power supply was more plentiful," Savoy said. "Now, with a constrained power supply, they understand this is what it's going to take to get in the game."

So far this year, Duke has not signed a new data center customer, but it did execute a minimum take agreement with another large load customer, Savoy said.

Some analyst expect electricity demand from data centers to double by the end of the decade, and Duke is among several U.S. electric utilities that have recently revised upwards demand growth forecasts in the face new data center demand.

Data centers were a top driver of Duke's 3.5% commercial load growth in first three months of the year.

By 2028, data centers are expected to make up 25% of 18,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) Duke projects in new load from customers, including industrial and commercial businesses. Duke this month increased that figure by 2,000 GWh from February projections.

Many of the utilities will have to build new and expensive infrastructure to accommodate the increasing electricity load, adding expenses that could be subsidized by other homes and businesses.

Earlier this year, Duke boosted its capital expenditure guidance plans by $8 billion to $73 billion, an $8 billion amid projected a jump in demand growth in 2024.

Take-or-pay agreements are among the contract terms intended to provide a buffer between the growing investment in power build-outs for businesses and rising power bills for common customers.

Duke is also seeing requests for larger electricity capacity for each center development, Savoy said. Where a typical data center in Duke's territory has been around 300-to-400 megawatts, new developments are aiming for 700 megawatts-to-2 gigawatts of capacity, he said.

"The data center developers will size the facility to the capacity will offer them," Savoy said. (Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Liz Hampton and Marguerita Choy)