Driving economic growth and sustainability: our 2024 milestones

At Black Hills Energy, we strive to be at the forefront of driving economic growth and sustainability in our service territories through strategic investments and innovative energy solutions. We achieved major milestones in 2024, emphasizing our commitment to resilience, reliability and community support.

Community impact and contributions

For over a decade, Black Hills Energy has successfully served Microsoft’s data center energy needs through an innovative market energy procurement model. This model, supported by a unique tariff, allows efficient market energy procurement to meet data centers' energy needs without cost impacts to existing customers.

With our dedication to reliability and our innovative tariffs, Meta announced plans in 2024 to build a hyperscale data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We're pleased to welcome them to our Black Hills Energy service territory and ready to support their energy requirements.

Additionally, we proudly announced a significant, sustaining donation to the Boys & Girls Club of Cheyenne, Wyoming. This $1.3 million gift is a result of a unique partnership between Black Hills Energy, Microsoft, NextEra Energy Resources, and Southern Power will support the Club’s efforts over the next decade, promoting academic success, healthy lifestyles and positive character development for around 1,000 area youth.

We are committed to supporting the energy needs of our customers and the growth of the data center industry, which relies on cost-effective and reliable energy. This year, we also disclosed new location opportunities for data centers in South Dakota. Our electric service is among the best in the nation, consistently recognized for top-tier reliability. With South Dakota’s favorable business environment—no corporate income tax and a climate ideal for data storage—our energy solutions not only meet the needs of data centers but also align with our company’s sustainability goals.

Driving economic growth

By handling the load of data centers, Black Hills Energy is supporting economic growth in our local communities. According to the Cheyenne-Laramie County Corporation for Economic Development, the selection and construction of a data center site can significantly boost the local area economy:

• An annual contribution of $100 million to Wyoming’s Gross Domestic Product.
• Over $82.6 million in total wages paid to employees since coming to Wyoming.
• Around 148 additional jobs in support occupations, not including construction employment.
• Over $20 million in sales taxes paid on power.

This substantial impact in Wyoming bodes well for our sites in Colorado and South Dakota. 

Between Black Hills Energy’s strong ability to do business, paired with localized tariffs, taxes and weather—we’re not only enhancing our service dependability, we’re building stronger, long-lasting business partnerships and most importantly, contributing significantly to the local economies. 

We can’t wait to see what happens in 2025!