Cordova's co-op wants a data center to soak up unsold hydropower

Cordova has more clean power than it can sell, and a bad fishing season is turning that into a rate problem.

The city's electric cooperative has run on 100% hydropower for three months, but weak seafood catches have cut power sales enough that CEC is weighing rate increases. Its hydro runs whether or not anyone is drawing on it, and much of that generation goes unused.

The cooperative's answer, after years of pursuing it, is a small data center inside a storage bay at its warehouse on LeFevre Avenue — a customer whose demand does not rise and fall with the fish. "A data industry would provide the additional revenues necessary to fill in the gap," the cooperative said, easing pressure on residential, commercial, and processor rates.

CEC has spent two decades trying to build year-round demand, with winter incentive rates and pushes on heat pumps and electric vehicles. It says the facility would use closed-loop cooling that needs no water, require no grid upgrades or new city services, and add property and sales tax revenue.

No timeline has been set.