The Wyoming Energy Authority asked the Joint Interim Corporations, Elections & Political Subdivisions Committee on Aug. 14 to back continued stakeholder work to create clearer processes for serving large electricity customers and to reduce regulatory uncertainty for possible third‑party generation that would serve such customers.

The authority’s executive director, Rob Krieger, and staff described a months‑long stakeholder process that identified two policy goals: protecting existing ratepayers from the risk of stranded assets and ensuring clear, timely processes and timelines for economic developers and utilities when large new electric loads seek service.

John Jenks, director of energy market development at the Energy Authority, said stakeholders and his team have done “exhaustive” outreach — he counted more than 40 hours of formal engagement, plus many individual calls — and that the group has issued three draft proposals. The first two mirrored Utah’s recent law but stakeholders rejected that model for Wyoming. The authority’s July “hybrid” third draft included both a possible statutory piece and a rulemaking element for the Public Service Commission (PSC); the authority now favors a PSC process to set timelines and a central repository so economic developers know what to expect when engaging utilities.

Kara Fornstrom (identified in the meeting as a consultant with prior PSC experience) summarized Wyoming’s current legal backdrop. She highlighted the 2019 statute (cited in the presentation as 37‑3‑116) that allows utilities, at their discretion, to enter special contracts for customer loads above 5 megawatts and explicitly prohibits obligating other customers to pay incremental costs to serve those loads. Fornstrom said Rocky Mountain Power, Black Hills Power and others already have or are developing tariffs and business policies to implement similar protections and engagement processes within their territories.

The panel and many committee members discussed major unresolved questions around so‑called third‑party or nonutility generation: whether an entity that builds generation (or procures it) and sells it to one or a few customers within a certificated utility territory would be treated as a public utility under Wyoming law. Fornstrom reviewed a chain of Wyoming Supreme Court decisions beginning in 1942 that set factors for determining whether an entity is “devoted to the public use” and therefore a public utility, and noted the PSC has an active rulemaking docket and an Anschutz Corporation petition seeking a declaratory order on that question. Anschutz has said it may build wind, solar and gas capacity in Carbon County and has asked the PSC to say whether that would render it a public utility; the company also has reserved the right to go to court if the commission declines to issue a declaratory order.

Chris Petrie, the PSC deputy chairman who spoke later in the meeting, reiterated the commission’s statutory mission to ensure safe, adequate and reliable service at just and reasonable rates, and said the PSC believes it can and should use rulemaking to clarify how nonutility generation can be treated in narrowly defined circumstances. Petrie said the PSC intends to re‑notice its nonutility generator rulemaking and is also scheduling open meetings with utilities so the utilities can explain the processes they would follow when large load requests arrive.

Anthony O’Nellis, administrator of the Office of Consumer Advocate, told the committee the OCA supports tools that protect legacy ratepayers and emphasized “growth must pay for growth.” The OCA said it believes existing Wyoming statute (37‑3‑116) and approved tariffs provide significant consumer protections and that any new approach must ensure legacy customers are not harmed. The OCA also warned that allowing third‑party generation within certificated territories would amount to a partial restructuring of the regulated monopoly model and raises many open questions about residual utility obligations and who would bear backup or reliability costs.

Industry stakeholders who addressed the committee differed on solutions. The Wyoming Industrial Energy Consumers (WIAC) and several mining and industrial representatives urged regulatory clarity that would allow developers or third‑party generators to contract directly with large customers in limited circumstances, arguing that option can preserve economic development opportunities while concentrating cost and reliability risk with the customer and the third‑party generator rather than shifting it to small residential ratepayers. Utilities and electric cooperatives said they support serving large loads but pushed back on allowing third parties to operate inside certificated territories without clear obligations, compliance with reliability and NERC/FERC requirements and a process that ensures financing and system planning will not expose utility owners or captive customers to unknown risks.

Committee members repeatedly pressed presenters on details: what megawatt thresholds would apply; whether the number of customers a third‑party may serve should be limited; how interruptible or backup service would be handled; how costs for network and transmission upgrades would be allocated; and how to ensure that multistate cost allocations do not shift disproportionate burdens onto Wyoming customers. Presenters referenced specific tariffs and approaches: Rocky Mountain Power’s Schedule 400 and stipulations in its recent rate case (which include new capacity charges for loads above 50 MW and special contract rules for loads above 200 MW), Black Hills Power’s existing large power contract tariff in the Cheyenne area, and Tri‑State/Basin policies under development for co‑op territories.

Presenters and the PSC noted some of the specific risk profiles that make large loads complex. Panelists said the state could see industrial proposals and data center projects that require hundreds of megawatts or more — one example discussed in the meeting was a prospective project described in public comments as exceeding one gigawatt, and presenters said Anschutz’s filings referenced roughly 3,200 megawatts of nameplate capacity in Carbon County (figures described in the meeting and not adjudicated here). Several witnesses said such large, concentrated demand can strain systems designed for modest, distributed load growth and that planning, queuing and clearly defined contractual and tariff mechanisms are essential.

Next steps outlined to the committee: the Energy Authority plans an all‑stakeholder meeting on Oct. 9, with the authority returning to the corporations committee in November to provide a final recommendation. The PSC said it will continue formal rulemaking on nonutility generators and will schedule open meetings with utilities to examine existing large‑load processes and tariffs. Presenters told the committee they will continue stakeholder engagement and refinement of draft proposals; several committee members said they prefer to see a PSC‑based solution rather than immediate statutory changes but left the door open to legislation if rulemaking and stakeholder processes cannot produce clear protections and workable timelines.

Votes at the meeting: the committee approved the minutes of its prior interim meeting by voice vote during the session. The minutes approval was announced as carried following the voice vote (no recorded roll call on the record for that motion).