Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (AP)-private investment companies that are helping to finance the United States artificial intelligence career and the enormous construction of hungry data centers are interested in local public services that offer electricity to regular customers, and servers that feed the AI.
Millions of dollars of such companies now flow to electrical services in places such as New Mexico, Texas, Wisconsin and Minnesota that offer energy to more than 150 million customers in millions of miles of electric lines.
“The reason is very simple: because there is a lot of money to do,” said Greg Brown, a finance professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill who investigates private capital funds and coverage.
Private investment companies that have done well invested in infrastructure in the last 15 years now have strong incentives to add data centers, energy plants and the services that support them at a time of rapid expansion and demand for peaks that are lit by the debut of 2022 of Openai Chatgpt, Brown said.
The Blackrock CEO, Larry Fink, said so much in a Julio interview in CNBC, saying that the infrastructure is “at the beginning of a golden age.”
“We believe that there is a need for billions of dollars that invest in infrastructure related to our energy networks, AI, all the digitalization of the economy” and energy, Fink said.
Offers are in process
In recent weeks, the private capital firm Blackstone has requested the regulatory approval to buy a couple of public services, the public service company based in Albuquerque of New Mexico and Lewisville, Texas, New Mexico Power Co., based in Texas Power Co.
Wisconsin earlier this year granted the purchase of the parents of higher water, light and energy and the owner of Northern Indiana Public Service Co. Last year sold a 19.9% ​​participation in the public services company to Blackstone.
However, a fight has exploded in Minnesota for the purchase of Minnesota Power parents, based in Duluth, and the result could determine how such companies expand their holdings in an industry that is a link between regular people, gigantic data centers and the energy sources they share.
According to the proposed agreement, a subsidiary of Blackrock and the Investment Board of the Canada Pension Plan would buy the allete that is quoted in the stock market, father of Minnesota Power, which provides energy to 150,000 clients and has a variety of energy sources, including coal, gas, wind and solar.
Both parts of the fight have attracted influential players before a possible vote on October 3 by the Minnesota Public Services Commission. Increasing bets is the potential that Google could build a data center there, a lucrative perspective for those who own Minnesota Power.
The opponents of acquisition suspect that Blackrock is only interested in squeezing greater profits from regular taxpayers. Allete makes the opposite argument, which Blackrock can show more patience because it is free of short -term loads of companies that are publicly negotiated.
The opponents also worry that a successful purchase of energy from Minnesota lashes more than this type of offers around the US. And generate electrical invoices for houses.
“It is no secret that private capital is extremely aggressive in pursuing profits, and when it comes to public services, the reason for earnings lands directly on the backs of taxpayers who do not have the option of the option of whom they buy their electricity,” said Karlee Weinmann of the Institute of Energy and Policies, which pushes profits to keep the low rates and using renewable energy sources.
Purchase proposals arrive at a time when electricity invoices are rapidly increasing in the United States, and the growing evidence suggests that the invoices of some regular Americans are increasing to subsidize the rapid construction of electric power plants and electricity lines to provide gigantic energy needs of Big Tech data centers.
Mark Ellis, a former defender of Executive Consumption of Public Services who gave a testimony of experts against the purchase of energy from Minnesota, said he has spoken with private capital companies that wish to enter the electrical services business.
“It’s just a matter of what the price is and the regulator will approve it,” Ellis said. “The challenge is that they will not go on sale very often.”
This is because electrical services are considered valuable long -term investments that obtain about 10% yields not in the electricity they offer, but the surcharge that public service regulators allow in capital investments, such as updating posts, cables and substations.
That gives public services owners the incentive of spending more so they can earn more money, critics say.
The fight for the power of Minnesota resembles some of the battles that explode in the United States, where residents do not want a data center campus to collapse next to them.
The construction of trades unions and the administration of the Democratic governor Tim Walz, who appointed or re -elected the five public service commissioners, are placed on foot and Blackrock.
On the other hand, the Office of the State Attorney General and the industrial interests that buy two thirds of the Electricity of Minnesota Power, including the US steel and other owners of iron mineral mines, oil and pulp pipes and paper paper.
In his request, Allete told regulators that, under the property of Blackrock, the operations, strategy and values ​​of Minnesota Power would not change and do not expect the purchase price, $ 6.2 billion, including $ 67 per share for shareholders with a 19%premium, to affect electrical rates.
In essence, Allete, who requested offers for a purchase, argues that Blackrock’s property will benefit the public because, under it, it will be easier to raise the money you need to comply with the Minnesota Law that requires public service companies to obtain 100% of their electricity -free sources for 2040.
Allete has projected the need to spend $ 4.3 billion on transmission and clean energy projects for five years.
However, opponents say that Allete’s suggestion will have difficulty raising money is unfounded and undermined for their own presentations with the United States Stock Exchange and Securities Commission in which she says she is “well positioned” to meet their financial needs.
It has not been a soft sled for Blackrock.
In July, a judge of Administrative Law, Megan J. McKenzie, recommended that the commission reject the agreement, saying that the evidence reveals the “purchase intention of doing what is expected to do private capital: obtain profits higher than public markets through the control of the company.”
In recent days, a personnel analysis of the Services Services Commission echoed the concerns of McKenzie.
They suggested that private investors could simply load Minnesota Power with mass debts, borrow from a relatively low interest rate and convert a profit margin in the fatty commission of the Public Services commission that awarded a generous performance rate.
“For large investors in private capital, this is a mutual benefit,” the staff wrote. “For taxpayers of highly leveraged profit, this represents paying huge profits to the owners if the private capital ‘wins’ and dealing with a bankruptcy service provider if it loses, it is a loss of loss.”
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