{"id":194005,"date":"2025-06-18T12:44:47","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T17:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=194005"},"modified":"2025-06-18T12:45:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T17:45:19","slug":"data-centers-more-discussed-at-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2025\/06\/18\/data-centers-more-discussed-at-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Data centers, more discussed at meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>VW independent staff\/submitted information<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ST MARYS &#8212;\u00a0An update on power supply shortages was the main discussion at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__www.midwestrec.com_&amp;d=DwMFAg&amp;c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&amp;r=FC13PzDbVZ8qhVsUeHYgLJLYUVcrkfTA5q3JvQduqoI&amp;m=HJmN9yfJUIn2inYXELJ3gq5_TjeeDmzgA6Ncb77jR0xN4R5nYqXQDFSRuPloRDO9&amp;s=w8uLH_kRtDCCANNqncIB5s9ZssWhQEX6z05-5dFEp2A&amp;e=\">Midwest Electric\u2019s<\/a>\u00a088<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0annual meeting recently held at St. Marys Memorial High School. More than 1,000 members, families, and guests attended and enjoyed pony rides, a dinner buffet, kids\u2019 games, bounce houses, a health fair, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adam Howe of St. Marys Memorial High School, son of Chris Howe, was the winner of the $1,000 scholarship drawing, and numerous members won a total of $2,000 in cash prizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Director election results were announced with each candidate serving a three-year term on the board:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Steve Bauer (District 1: Auglaize and Shelby counties)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kathy Brake (District 3: Van Wert County)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Jim Wiechart (District 4: Mercer and Darke counties)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>CEO Matt Berry discussed the extreme cold this past January and all-time winter electric peak set in the 13-state regional power grid. While power supplies were tight, the regional grid operator managed it well by requiring all power plants to cancel planned maintenance outages, and ordering peaking power plants to be up and running, and canceling previously scheduled exports of power to other regions.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Midwest-Electric-meeting-2025.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-194006\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Midwest Electric&#8217;s annual meeting was recently held at St. Marys Memorial High School. <em>Photo submitted<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>The situation remains critical, Berry said, because data centers are causing load forecasts to skyrocket. And the premature shutdown of coal, nuclear, and natural gas power plants continues, while much of the proposed new power generation is \u201cnon-dispatchable\u2019 solar, wind and battery storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the brighter side, Berry noted that Buckeye Power Supply Cooperative\u2019s strategy of owning all of our power generation has resulted in us having lower electric rates than AEP and AES.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe continue to have very good power plant performance, especially during critical periods when it\u2019s unusually hot or cold,\u201d Buckeye Power CEO Craig Grooms told members. \u201cInvesting in our resources and having a long-term focus on how we generate power continues to pay off and has helped us avoid some of the turbulence and volatility seen across the electric utility industry over the last few years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Grooms also discussed the influx of data centers in Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur legislative affairs team has been very active in the regulatory process to help ensure that only those transmission customers causing the investment are allocated costs, not electric co-op members.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Board President Jim Wiechart said the board and staff will create a new three-year strategic plan later this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSo, as we start to create our new three-year strategic plan, we ask you, our members, three main questions,\u201d Wiechart said. \u201cWhat do you think Midwest Electric should start doing? What do you think Midwest Electric should stop doing? What do you think Midwest Electric should keep doing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Members are encouraged to contact the co-op with feedback by calling the office or emailing&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:mberry@midwestrec.com\">mberry@midwestrec.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VW independent staff\/submitted information ST MARYS &#8212;\u00a0An update on power supply shortages was the main discussion at\u00a0Midwest Electric\u2019s\u00a088th\u00a0annual meeting recently held at St. Marys Memorial High School. More than 1,000 members, families, and guests attended and enjoyed pony rides, a dinner buffet, kids\u2019 games, bounce houses, a health fair, and more. Adam Howe of St. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 00:29:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194005"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194008,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194005\/revisions\/194008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}