CMS Energy Says 1 GW Microsoft Data Center May Advance After Midterms
CMS Energy CEO Garrick Rochow expects more zoning progress on the up-to-1 GW Microsoft site after next week's vote, while Consumers has energized 450 MW of 745 MW in signed large-load contracts.
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CMS Energy's CEO expects more local progress on the up-to-1 GW data center after the elections, according to Utility Dive.
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CMS Energy CEO Garrick Rochow said a data center set to draw up to 1 GW from the Consumers Energy grid in Michigan could see "more progress" on local permitting after next week's elections, according to Utility Dive's report on the company's third-quarter earnings call.
Rochow told investors and analysts that opposition to data centers is partly driven by political campaigns. "Some of the spin that you see leading up to the election does not equal reality," he said. He did not name Microsoft, but Utility Dive identifies it as the customer, and he said the project is continuing to progress through zoning in multiple locations after a permitting setback in April.
What Consumers has signed and energized
The utility is further along on smaller loads. Rochow said Consumers has energized about 450 MW of new large load out of 745 MW of signed contracts in its five-year plan. Those contracts cover a medium-sized data center plus semiconductor, food-processing and manufacturing sites, and they do not include the Microsoft project, Utility Dive reported.
Consumers has energized about 450 MW of the 745 MW of signed large-load contracts, the CEO said on the Q3 call.
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CMS Energy chief financial officer Sri Maddipati said each gigawatt of incremental large load could drive $2 billion to $5 billion of capital investment for the utility. Those figures apply only if the load is signed, permitted and built.
The company also left out the "funnel" slide that showed Consumers' multi-gigawatt large-load pipeline from its third-quarter presentation. The slide had appeared in the past several quarterly presentations, and Rochow said dropping it was intentional. The size of that pipeline is therefore not quantified in the new materials.
Earnings and wider plan
CMS Energy earned $0.39 per share in the third quarter, down from $0.92 a year earlier. The company said the result reflects asset impairment and restructuring tied to NorthStar Clean Energy, its non-regulated clean energy developer, which it plans to separate by the end of the year. It projects annual load growth of 2% to 3% through 2030 and a $443 million revised revenue request in its pending Michigan electric rate case, which it expects the state commission to decide by early April 2027.
CMS has also said it plans to invest more than $17 billion in its electric system over the next five years. Separately, the company said it has spent $303 million through the end of September running the J.H. Campbell coal plant, about 1,420 MW, under a U.S. Department of Energy emergency order, net of $344 million in market revenues. It plans to ask the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to recover the net cost.
What is not confirmed yet
No permit decision exists yet. Rochow's comment is a forecast about timing, not an approval, and the 1 GW figure is the maximum draw rather than a contracted load. The Microsoft project sits outside the 745 MW of signed contracts, so it is not yet part of the utility's firm demand. For earlier coverage of the election's effect on build schedules, see how Voltgrid reported on midterm risk to data center timing.
