PSC filings reveal NorthWestern plan for gas storage facility near Broadview substation

This new information was part of a July 2 post-hearing brief filed to the Public Service Commission regarding NorthWestern’s planned merger with Black Hills Energy. The sharing of the information has since been disputed and is part of a confidentiality quarrel between utilities and intervening parties. A July 13 notice of PSC staff action determined the location of the gas storage project was protected information. 

The most recent post-hearing brief posted publicly was filed July 13 on behalf of Montana Farmer’s Union and environmental group 350 Montana — organizations that oppose the merger. In the redacted brief, the groups continue to emphasize that the merger is in large part because of data centers and obtaining the financial coffers to attract and support such customers in Montana.

According to groups opposing the merger, the gas storage facility is considered part of the larger incentive to the business transaction. The document stated the information was excluded from a standard expenditure plan shared with the PSC. Such data centers and their associated infrastructure are considered by opposing parties to impose an unneeded risk on ratepayers, the brief said.

“Data centers can choose where they locate,” attorney Monica Tranel wrote in a filing made on Monday evening. “Captive ratepayers have nowhere else to go. Because data centers can choose their location, monopoly publicly regulated utilities are 'competing' for that load. But these monopolies are not competing for the captive ratepayers, who have no choice in their electricity supplier.”

Past Department of Environmental Quality emails obtained by the Billings Gazette indicated Quantica was working with NorthWestern this spring to help establish grid infrastructure for its reported 1,100-megawatt data center. Quantica submitted multiple interconnection requests to NorthWestern in March. Those studies currently take years. 

Plans like a gas storage facility are likely in the early stages of discussion. A NorthWestern spokesperson said they were unfamiliar with the project. A spokesperson with Quantica said they didn't know of any correlation between the gas storage plan and the business’ data center.

In part of NorthWestern’s July 8 request for further redaction, the location of the potential gas storage project was considered restricted because the utility “was still actively negotiating the land rights and disclosing the location could be detrimental to those negotiations.” Intervening parties were made aware of the potential location after signing a nondisclosure agreement to obtain the confidential information.

The Billings Gazette briefly reported it at the bottom of an article on the merger that was published on June 10, before utilities took issue with confidentiality.

The information was initially shared during a presentation by John Hines, NorthWestern’s vice president of supply and Montana government affairs, attorneys for the utilities said. That presentation was considered confidential, though it remains disputed, according to recent filings. 

“At present, the Joint Applicants’ post-hearing brief and their challenge to Intervenors’ public filing are publicly available, while Intervenors’ public brief and response have remained held from the public portal,” Tranel wrote in a July 13 filing. “That posture creates a one-sided public record in a matter of extraordinary public importance.”

The updated post-hearing brief by Tranel disputed the gas storage facility’s location as fully independent from Quantica’s planned data center.

“To claim these projects are independent is to ask this Commission to believe in a multi-million-dollar geographic coincidence,” Tranel wrote. “That is a regulatory shell game.”

The opposing parties asked for rejection of the merger or to reopen the record to examine who would pay for such a gas storage facility.

“If the answer is Montana captive ratepayers, that fact is the most consequential undisclosed liability in this proceeding,” Tranel wrote. “If the answer is data centers paying their own costs, that fact should be an enforceable condition of any approval. Either way, the Commission cannot rule without knowing the answer.”

The briefing, while redacted, also laid out plans for a future “Data Center Highway” transmission project designed to carry significant amounts of power to Montana. Such a project could cost hundreds of millions.

Tranel wrote in the updated filing that a NorthWestern leader testified the transmission line could transfer power from the Yellowstone County Generating Station, generation paid for by ratepayers, to points east and on to Colstrip. The considered transmission line could then carry that power on to Cheyenne, Wyoming, for a planned data center, which Black Hills has partnered with. Attorneys for the utilities have also asked for details around the transmission line location to be omitted from public view.

NorthWestern has repeated that the merger is about creating a more efficient and resilient utility and has continually sought exclusion of information around the subject of data centers. The utility has pointed to tariffs on large loads submitted by the company as the PSC’s opportunity to discuss how to approach data center regulation in Montana, rather than the merger hearing itself. Still, the entities seeking the merger have noted to shareholders that a merger would provide future data center opportunities.

For its part, Quantica has repeatedly pledged to pay its own way for potential costs associated with the project. Its pledge arrives amid nationwide opposition around the projects because of potential inflation of electricity costs and environmental concerns. Electricity concerns around data centers is something that NorthWestern seems to recognize, hence its proposed tax on large load customers like data centers.

“Questions about impacts on energy reliability and rates are understandable,” Rick Edwards, NorthWestern’s director of community connections, said in a June op-ed. “That is why NorthWestern Energy proposed a Large New Load Tariff Rule ... Our intent with this proposal is to establish a transparent regulatory process to ensure that customers with new, very large energy needs pay the cost of the infrastructure required to serve them.”

Another project in development near the Broadview substation was publicly announced early last year in planning for a transmission line from the Shorey Road substation to the Broadview substation, both north of Billings.

Construction for the project isn't expected to begin until 2027. Such a transmission line could also benefit Quantica’s planned data center and infrastructure needs, though a NorthWestern spokesperson said it was planned before the entrance of Quantica. Energy development in the Broadview area has been eyed for nearly a decade.

In a February 2025 fact sheet NorthWestern stated its planned project comes from "significant residential and commercial demand growth in the Billings areas.” The document said the transmission project will provide improvements to capacity and reliability to “support growing electric load and Billings area economy.”