Wyoming Weighs Loosening Utility Rules as Trona Industry, Data Centers Compete for Power
Why It Matters
Wyoming’s electricity grid is under mounting pressure from two directions — the state’s foundational trona and soda ash industry and a wave of incoming data center projects. How lawmakers respond could reshape energy regulation, industrial competitiveness, and utility rates for Wyoming residents and small businesses alike.
What Happened
Wyoming’s Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee heard testimony Thursday from mining, oil and gas, and utility representatives about the state’s tightening electricity supply and what regulatory changes might help address it.
The trona industry, which generates more than $1.3 billion in annual commodity exports and represents a majority of Wyoming’s global export shipments, told lawmakers it has repeatedly been unable to access enough power to pursue expansion opportunities. Industry representative Jody Levin said that under current system constraints, utilities could take as long as seven years to fulfill new large-load requests — a timeline she called functionally unworkable.
“Seven years is a de facto no,” Levin told the committee. “That isn’t a reasonable timeframe.”
Power reliability is also a pressing concern. Levin described an incident last fall in which two brief outages within a single 24-hour period caused equipment damage severe enough to take a soda ash processing facility offline for three months.
The Third-Party Generation Proposal
Mining and oil and gas interests are pushing for regulatory changes that would allow clusters of industrial operators to contract with or form a third-party power generator dedicated solely to their operations — bypassing the slower, heavily regulated utility process. Advocates argue the approach would accelerate power access without affecting existing utility customers.
Levin was careful to frame the ask narrowly. “We’re not asking for widespread deregulation,” she said, while noting that electricity policy built over the past century is increasingly ill-suited to current demand realities.
But lawmakers and utility officials cautioned that the proposal carries significant complications. Lander Republican Sen. Cale Case, who co-chairs the committee, pointed out that industrial operators opting out of the utility system would likely still need the local utility as a backup — and their departure would remove large-load customers whose rate contributions currently help subsidize service for smaller customers and households.
“You’d drive costs up for the other customers on the system, and that’s a true fact,” Case said.
Utility Industry Pushback
Rocky Mountain Power President Dick Garlish urged the committee to carefully consider what happens if industrial operators build their own generation capacity and then find it more difficult or expensive than anticipated. If those customers later seek to re-enter the regulated utility system, the costs of that reintegration could fall on existing ratepayers.
“If I don’t have some kind of regulatory, statutory protection, then my existing customers and the existing system is at risk,” Garlish warned.
He also noted that operating a power plant — whether coal, natural gas, or otherwise — involves routine maintenance shutdowns and unexpected breakdowns that utilities manage through built-in redundancies and grid-wide power trading arrangements that a standalone industrial generator would lack.
By the Numbers
- $1.3 billion — annual value of Wyoming trona and soda ash exports, representing more than half the state’s global commodity shipments
- 7 years — estimated time for utilities to fulfill large new electricity requests under current system constraints
- 3 months — duration one soda ash facility was offline following two brief power outages last fall
- 4.4% — share of total U.S. electricity consumption attributable to data centers in 2023, per the Department of Energy
- 12% — projected data center share of U.S. electricity use by 2028
Zoom Out
Wyoming is not alone in confronting this tension. Across the country, grid operators and state regulators are grappling with surging electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence infrastructure and data center construction. Some estimates suggest data centers in Wyoming alone could double or triple the state’s current total electricity consumption. Separate concerns about power availability have also emerged around the Palisades area, reflecting how supply pressures are surfacing across multiple regions of the state.
Several states have begun experimenting with large-customer tariff structures that ring-fence new industrial and tech loads from the broader rate base — a mechanism Wyoming is already using in limited form for data center contracts.
What’s Next
The committee has not advanced specific legislation, but members signaled openness to exploring modifications to Wyoming’s large-customer tariff structure and potentially new frameworks for third-party generation. Rural electric cooperatives have also submitted proposals involving “customer allocation agreements” for high-impact loads. Further committee deliberation is expected as the state works toward a policy framework that addresses industrial demand without destabilizing utility rates for smaller customers.