El Paso Electric Proposes Rate Increase Amid Record Outages and Data Center Development
El Paso Electric is pursuing a 23% rate increase for residential customers while experiencing significant outages and developing a $10 billion data center. The implications for local infrastructure and environmental sustainability raise concerns among residents and advocacy groups.
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El Paso Electric has received approval for a 23% rate increase effective May 2026, raising average residential bills by approximately $13 per month. The utility ranks third nationally for outages, with seven major incidents affecting tens of thousands of customers in just over four months in 2026.
Concurrently, a $10 billion Meta data center is under construction, prompting El Paso Electric to plan a $500 million gas-fired power plant, with costs likely shifted to customers after an initial period covered by Meta. El Paso Water has also faced significant challenges, including a recent major water main failure and a potential dam collapse, while estimating the data center's water consumption at 400,000 gallons per day. The situation raises concerns about resource allocation and environmental impacts, as community opposition to the data center intensifies.
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