Click the link to read the article on the Alamosa Citizen website (Owen Woods):
May 8, 2026
Saguache County adopted a resolution on Tuesday, May 5, 2026 that placed an emergency temporary moratorium on any data center projects within the county for six months.
Some language was changed in the draft resolution during the meeting, but the commissioners said the resolution was drafted following their April 21 meeting where San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative CEO Eric Eriksen said that the power company had received three inquiries for “rural data center” projects in the Valley.
A representative with SLVREC said Eriksen was out of the office this week, so a voicemail was left with him on Tuesday morning.
Alamosa County Administrator Roni Wisdom sent the Citizen a copy of SLVREC’s informational newsletter that breaks down what a “rural data center” is. In that letter given to the Alamosa County Commissioners, Eriksen said that over the past year, SLVREC “have been in discussion with three rural data center developers exploring opportunities.”
The Saguache County moratorium is necessary “for the immediate preservation and protection of the public health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Saguache County.”
“Everybody in our county is upset about data centers,” said Saguache County Commissioner Liza Marron.
The primary purpose for enacting an emergency temporary moratorium on the acceptance, processing, or approval of data center projects is “to provide the County sufficient time” to develop and amend the Saguache County Land Use Code, Standards, other sections of the Land Use Code, and Saguache County 1041 Regulations.
Any changes to the land use code requires a review and recommendation by the County Planning Commission and a public hearing.
“The intent of the new Land Use Code and 1041 provisions prepared and implemented during the moratorium period is to establish an improved process and standards regarding requests for Data Center projects,” the resolution reads.
“County Land Use Department has informed the BOCC that it has received inquiries regarding data center projects and the current regulations in the Land Use Code,” the original draft read. This turned out not to be the case.
Saguache Land Use Administrator Amber Wilson said her office has not had any official inquiries for data centers. “No one has come to us,” she said.
The language in the paragraph of the moratorium had been changed on May 5 to reflect the information stemming from SLVREC.
The Saguache County commissioners can put the moratorium in place for the purposes of “prohibiting or regulating in any part of or all of the unincorporated territory of the county used or to be used for any business, residential, industrial or commercial purpose….”
Meanwhile in Alamosa County, Land Use and Building Director Richard Hubler told the Citizen, “we have not received any applications for data centers, although I’ve had a couple questions about them, including a call from someone related to this small scalecontainer based project”
Hubler said that Alamosa County doesn’t currently have anything specific codes to address data centers, but he said the county is currently “talking about updates that would likely end up with some new language about stand-alone data centers as a primary use, and something related to size.”
“Certainly the Hyperscale centers like the Front Range are seeing could have a huge impact on housing and energy needs,” Hubler said, “in addition to water. But the smaller ones like that container may be a good fit for existing capacity on the SLVREC system.”
He noted there are some small data centers that assist agriculture operations and also the local hospital system.
“We even have server rooms at the county buildings, but these are all ancillary to the principal use, not developed for commercial sale/rental applications, and are not as much part of the current ‘data center’ conversation which focuses heavily on AI.”
This map shows the current data centers, their power usage and location. Though it has yet to be built yet, the BlueSky AI project in Huerfano County is already on the map.
“Our high altitude cool sunshine air, your SLV Rural Electric Cooperative and Ciello broadband are perhaps the most ideal conditions in the nation for a rural data center,” Eriksen wrote. “That gives us a competitive advantage.”
Eriksen wrote mainly about the economic and technological benefits of a data center in rural areas.
“Not all data centers are the same,” he wrote. “Not every data center is a giant, power-hungry, watering-guzzling complex like the ones you see in national news.”
He compared the different types of data centers: Hyperscale data centers, regional data centers, and edge or rural data centers. Hyperscale data centers require 100 megawatts of power or more and thousands of square feet. Regional data centers are described as mid-sized facilities that require strong infrastructure, but are often operating on less than 100 megawatts.
The rural data centers, Eriksen said, “are the most relevant for us… Rural data centers are small, efficient facilities — often the size of a modular 20’ or 40’ metal container, a home or a small commercial building.”
He wrote that SLVREC’s largest “electric member” is about 1.5 megawatts.
These data centers, Eriksen wrote, require far less power than hyperscale data centers, operating at 50 kilowatts up to 50 megawatts. These centers are said to commonly use air-cooling or closed-loop refrigeration instead of consuming water.
In SLVREC’s position, the agriculture industry’s energy demand “has been declining.” The company sees the “underutilized capacity” as an opportunity “to serve five, 10, 20, 50 megawatts or more of rural data centers.”
According to SLVREC, there are seven long-haul fiber routes into and out of the Valley, “with terabytes of unused capacity that is ideal for data centers.”
Eriksen said that reducing the “digital distance” between the San Luis Valley “and the rest of the world is transformational. When data is processed closer to home, everything works better and faster. Rural data centers can help lower rates.”
Those three developers that SLVREC has been in communication with “haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but if one does, then you’ll know it’ll be beneficial for all of us,” wrote Eriksen.