The Port of Northern Montana has recently confirmed that it has a significant amount of low-cost renewable electrical power available at its Data Center Development Park in Shelby.

In particular, as a result of a cooperative arrangement with NaturEner USA, there is approximately 10 megawatts (MW) of renewable electrical power currently available at the Shelby Data Center Development Park from the nearby Glacier Wind Farm at 4 to 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), and by the end of the year it is projected that about 30 MW will likely be available at the data center park at around 3.5 to 4 cents per kWh.

With this confirmed low-cost renewable power along with State of Montana's recently revised and improved data center tax incentive and abatement, Shelby, MT is well-positioned for data center and cloud computing development.    

Following the initial passage and approval in 2017, the Montana Legislature in 2019 revised the tax incentive to expand it for certain qualifying data centers to attract more cloud computing development to areas such as Shelby, MT.

As a result, a qualified data center locating in Shelby, MT (as well as other parts of Montana) is eligible to have its property tax liability reduced by as much as 75% of its taxable value in the first five years after a construction permit is issued. 

As Montana has no sales tax, the Montana data center property tax incentive/abatement combined with the significant renewable electrical power capacity within the Port of Northern Montanamakes Shelby, MT a very attractive and competitive site for large data center development.

The Port of Northern Montana's Data Center Development Park in Shelby consists of ten ~140 acres sites zoned for large data center development, and it has substantial infrastructure including the city's water mainline, two electrical substations, and Interstate 15 access.  

Furthermore, the Shelby, Montana area recently was designated as an Opportunity Zone, which is a new federal economic development program designed to encourage long-term private investments in low-income communities. This program provides a federal tax incentive for taxpayers who reinvest unrealized capital gains into Opportunity Zones, such as Shelby, MT, and serves as a catalyst for investment into specific items such as infrastructure, business startup and expansion, downtown revitalization, workforce development, and affordable housing.  In particular, the Shelby Data Center Development Park is included in the Opportunity Zone.  

Shelby is also located along major transportation corridors. Due to these corridors, Shelby continues to see an increase in fiber network installations within existing right-of-way's and in-network capacity. Additionally, Shelby has a good combination of fiber optics capacity & redundancy and is connected to internet hubs all over the United States and Canada.  Shelby offers cloud computing or data center companies a robust fiber network. 

Port of Northern Montana | http://www.pnmshelby.com