The Cleco Customer Value Commitment
Cleco welcomes data center investments and recognizes the potential for these projects to bring positive outcomes when developed thoughtfully and responsibly.
Cleco’s Customer Value Commitment ensures data centers will deliver meaningful economic impact while maintaining the affordability, reliability, and value our customers expect and deserve.
Cleco’s planned investments in grid reliability and new generation infrastructure benefit all customers and will be substantially supported by data centers. And large load customers, like data centers, can further reduce customers’ costs by spreading expenses across a broader customer base. This is our commitment to ensure projects are carefully structured to benefit and protect all customers.
A Generational Opportunity
Data centers represent a unique, generational opportunity for Louisiana. The lasting impacts of a data center project will benefit communities across the state for years to come, inspiring future generations to stay and attracting new residents.
Economic Growth
As a leading Louisiana utility provider and a premier employer, we believe large projects enhance the economic well-being of our state. The introduction of new employers, such as a data center, not only creates additional job opportunities but also fosters productive and meaningful partnerships within the community. These collaborations drive positive change and support further growth, ensuring long-term benefits for residents and local organizations.
Rapides Parish Data Center Project
Cleco will serve power to the new data center project being developed by Applied Digital in Boyce, La. The data center will pay the full cost of the power and infrastructure needed to serve the facility. Additionally, the data center investment helps reduce costs for existing customers by spreading the system expenses across a broader customer base and can bring upgrades to power lines, substations, and equipment, which strengthen the grid to benefit all customers by reducing outages and improving service quality. For project information visit rapidesdatacenter.com.
Community Insights
FAQs
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What is Cleco’s role in powering Applied Digital’s data center in Rapides Parish?
Cleco is the electric utility provider, not the developer of the data center project.
Applied Digital is developing a data center, and our role is to provide power to customers in our service area. Like any other Cleco customer, they will pay for the service they receive including the full cost of power lines, substations, and other equipment needed to serve the data center.
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Will the data center impact power reliability?
No. In fact, new projects, like data centers, often bring upgrades to power lines, substations, and equipment – which strengthen the grid and benefit all customers by reducing outages and improving service quality.
Additionally, power reliability is a key competitive advantage to support transformative investments, like a data center.
And one of the reasons Applied Digital selected a site in Cleco’s service area is because Cleco Power is the only utility to meet or exceed Louisiana reliability standards for over 25 consecutive years and consistently delivers reliable power over 99.9% of the time.
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How will Cleco meet the energy demands of the data center?
Cleco is relying on its existing generation assets, as well as a power purchase agreement, which is in line with the normal course of business and will be paid in full by Applied Digital. -
Will the data center increase my electricity bill?
No. Bills will not be negatively impacted by the data center. Applied Digital will pay for the service and the full cost of the infrastructure needed to connect the data center to the electric grid. And there are protections in place to ensure the data center pays its fair share, and that costs aren’t passed on to other customers.
Louisiana customers already benefit from some of the lowest electricity rates in the country. Keeping power affordable and reliable is always our focus.
In fact, having a large customer like Applied Digital means existing customers can pay less than they otherwise would have paid without that new customer. That’s because electric utilities have significant fixed costs to maintain and strengthen the system - from grid investments to storm restoration and other system expenses.
When a large new customer joins the system and contributes significantly to those costs, those expenses can be spread across a larger customer base.
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Is Cleco building new generation specifically to support the data center in Rapides Parish?
No. We’re always investing in our transmission and distribution system, strengthening the grid, upgrading infrastructure and planning for the additional capacity needed to serve growing demand.
And we’re not just planning for today. We’re planning for the future, so our system is positioned to support economic growth while maintaining the reliability our customers expect.
While Cleco has recently made a request for a new generator, we identified the need for new generation long before Applied Digital was ever part of the conversation.
That means the proposed generation isn’t being built because of the data center – it was already needed and planned for to serve our system and maintain reliability for existing customers.
What the data center does is add a customer to help share those costs, reducing the amount that would otherwise be paid solely by existing customers.
All agreements and resource requests are reviewed and approved by the Louisiana Public Service Commission to ensure transparency and customer protection.
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Does Cleco support the data center?
Yes, Cleco supports local and regional economic development and wants to see each of our customers and communities thrive. As an electric provider, Cleco’s role is to provide safe, reliable and affordable power to the customers we serve. Applied Digital is one of those customers.
With that said, the data center project will bring meaningful economic growth to central Louisiana. According to Louisiana Economic Development (LED), thousands of construction workers will be needed to complete the project, and once operational, the data center is expected to support 200 well-paying, permanent jobs. Hundreds of additional jobs at nearby businesses could also be created to support the data center over time.
Plus, the project creates a meaningful, lasting tax base that supports schools, along with parish and state programs.
That kind of long-term investment can help create additional economic development and growth opportunities in the region – and that is something Cleco supports.