Who pays for the electricity, and who holds the utility contract?
Power is the largest running cost in an AI data centre. The filed leases pass the cost of electricity through to the tenant. The Applied Digital lease went further and let the tenant take over the utility contract, a right deleted when the lease was moved into a financed SPV. Ionic Digital’s lease to Nscale goes further: the landlord supplies only the substation capacity, 234 MW now and 89 MW later, and is not liable for any utility failure.
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What the filed contracts say
Contract
What the filed wording says
Applied Digital / CoreWeave lease
The tenant pays the cost of electricity actually consumed by the building, including common areas, as additional rent.
Applied Digital / CoreWeave lease
The tenant may take an assignment of the landlord's utility agreement or contract with the utility directly.
Applied Digital lease assignment
When the Building 3 lease moved to CoreWeave's financing SPV, the right to take over the utility agreement was deleted.
BXDC form lease
The landlord provides the contracted power capacity and bills it separately each month, with the critical infrastructure.
Ionic Digital lease to Nscale
The landlord provides step-down transformation for 234 MW, plus 89 MW more when the utility makes it available, and is not liable if utility power fails.
The filed wording
Each month, starting after the applicable Commencement Date, Tenant will be charged Tenant’s Power Payment (as defined on Schedule “I”), as Additional Rent, which shall equal the cost of electricity actually consumed by the Building, including all Data Halls and ancillary spaces and Common Areas, subject to the terms of Schedule “I” attached hereto.
Each extract is quoted from the contract as filed with the SEC, checked against the filed text when it was added; “…” marks words left out. Filers redact commercial terms, so a [***] or [*] is the filer's, not ours. The summaries describe the wording, not how a court would read it, and each contract's defined terms and other clauses can change the effect. General information drawn from public filings. It is not legal advice on any transaction, and using this page does not create a lawyer-client relationship. Views are personal.
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