The gigawatt meant to cut Kentucky power bills still has no announced tenant
Kentucky Power says one TeraWulf campus in Ashland would cover about half its fixed costs and steady rates. The miner has announced no tenant there, while AEP's Ohio arm has booked data-center contracts 70% above its own historic peak.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
Kentucky Power's rate math needs one very large customer
Eastern Kentucky's electric rates rise because the load keeps walking out: more than 19,000 coal-related jobs gone since 2009, and the count still falling 1. Kentucky Power's fix, pitched on 1 October, is a single customer big enough to matter 1. "As we add load and as we add customers, those rates get stabilized," said Amanda Clark, director of economic and business development, who priced the alternative at 175,000 new homes against the 162,000 the utility serves, or about 800 Hobby Lobby and TJ Maxx stores 1.
That customer is TeraWulf's planned Muskie campus near Ashland: eventually more than a gigawatt, roughly $4 billion of investment, the first 500 MW in late 2028 and the rest by 2030 12.
The megawatts are contracted; the tenant is not
TeraWulf's signed money sits at the other end of the state: Anthropic's 20-year, roughly $19 billion lease for 401 MW at the Justified campus in Hawesville, with power from late 2027 3.
Muskie is different. It holds 1 GW of electric service under a Kentucky PSC-approved data center tariff, with a promised 345-kV substation and first power due in the fourth quarter of 2028 4. On the 5 August call, the company offered only "actively advancing commercialization discussions" toward a tenant 4.
The machine runs on debt matched to signed leases: $3.2 billion and $1.3 billion of high-yield bonds already sold, about $3.5 billion more being raised for Hawesville 5, against $44.8 million of second-quarter revenue, a $939.9 million GAAP loss and roughly $1.45 billion of parent liquidity 4.
Ohio runs the same trade in the opposite direction
Parent AEP's Ohio arm has booked 17,861 MW of contracted data-center capacity, about 70% above the top of its historic peak, in a state whose auditor put average electricity prices up about 34% from 2022 through early 2026 and found no regulator plan for the growth 67. Ohio's answer bills qualifying data centers for at least 85% of contracted capacity for up to 12 years, used or not; the terms have never been tested 6.
AEP Ohio's signed data-center load sits 70% above its biggest-ever peak
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Contracted before 2025 tariff | 12,219 MW |
| Contracted under 2025 tariff | 5,642 MW |
| Total contracted data-center load | 17,861 MW |
Both camps have shields, neither has proof
Kentucky Power says its tariff permits no special deals: upgrades are funded up front and leavers pay exit fees; sister utility Indiana Michigan Power laid out a July plan to lower residential base rates 5% on large-load growth 1.
Hawesville residents are not persuaded: at a July hearing, none of more than a dozen speakers backed the project, in a county where July bills already averaged more than $260, up 39% from 2021 8. The public record settles nothing in either direction; Ohio's audit does not say how much of the 34% rise came from data centers 6.
No tenant, no relief
Governor Andy Beshear's 6 August order bars Kentucky utilities from recovering data-center costs from households 9. If Muskie slips, the 162,000 cannot be billed for the hole; the promised relief simply lapses.
The first tell is the one that matters most: a signed tenant at Muskie 4. After that, watch the PSC's review of Kentucky Power's planned gas unit at the old Big Sandy coal plant 2, Ohio's first enforcement of its take-or-pay terms 6, and Conserve Ohio's 2027 ballot amendment, already past 130,000 signatures 6.
In Ohio, the data centers pay whether they show up. In Kentucky, if the gigawatt never comes, the 162,000 keep paying what they pay now.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
