June 9, 2025; City of Chaska
6/9/2025 3:11:38 PM
This is an opinion of the Commissioner of Administration issued under Minnesota Statutes, section 13.072 (2024). It is based on the facts and information available to the Commissioner as described below.
The City of Chaska requested an advisory opinion from the Commissioner about whether certain data the City maintains are classified as private or nonpublic data on municipal electric utility customers under Minnesota Statutes, section 13.685.
The City provided the following summary of facts:
The City received a request from Mr. Wade Sorenson for government data related to the development of a data center within the City by an entity called Cloud HQ. Cloud HQ has been in the process of securing approvals for its development for several years and has received approval for preliminary grading and berm construction, platting, and rezoning. The City operates a municipal electric utility, and the Cloud HQ site is located within the City of Chaska’s electric utility service territory as assigned by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. The original request, which is included in this submission, stated the following requests:
. . . . 5. Provide a copy of all internal and external communications, documents and meeting notes with CloudHQ (or other parties) related to electricity consumption by the facility.
6. Provide a copy of all internal and external communications, documents and meeting notes with CloudHQ (or other parties) related to utility availability guarantees, SLAs, or prioritization of service for electricity or water to the data center facility.
7. Provide a copy of all internal and external communications, documents and meeting notes with CloudHQ (or other parties) related to reduced or preferential pricing for electricity, water or sewer fees.
. . . . The City ultimately did not provide Mr. Sorenson with 294 files responsive to requests numbers 5, 6, and 7 (the “Electric Data”). The City determined the Electric Data were classified as nonpublic pursuant to MN Stat. § 13.685. As previously stated, the City operates a municipal electric utility, and Cloud HQ’s development site lies within the City’s electric service territory. The Electric Data were responsive to request number 5 and parts of numbers 6 and 7 of Mr. Sorenson’s request for data. The City informed Mr. Sorenson on April 15, 2025 that it would not release the Electric Data.
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Based on the opinion request, the Commissioner agreed to address the following issues:
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The Data Practices Act classifies all government data as public and available to anyone upon request, unless otherwise classified as not public. (Minnesota Statutes, section 13.03, subdivision 1.) Here, the City asserts that some of the data requested by Mr. Sorenson are not public data as classified by Minnesota Statutes, section 13.685.
Section 13.685 states, “Data on customers of municipal electric utilities are private data on individuals or nonpublic data,” but the data may be disclosed in specific circumstances. In addition, data are classified at the time a request is made. (See Minnesota Statute, section 13.03, subdivision 9.)
Issue 1: Are data about future municipal electric utility customers classified as not public data by Minnesota Statutes, section 13.685?
Section 13.685 classifies data on municipal electric utility customers as private or nonpublic data. “Customer” is not defined in Chapter 13, so the Commissioner looks to the common and approved usage of the word. (Minnesota Statutes, section 645.08). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition, defines a customer as “[o]ne that buys goods or services, as from a store or business.” (See also Advisory Opinion 03-047.) Under this definition, one that has purchased or has a contract or agreement to purchase electric utility services is a customer of the municipal electric utility.
Here, the City is preparing to provide electric utility services to Cloud HQ, which plans to construct a data center within the City’s electric utility service territory. Based on the information provided to the Commissioner, it does not appear that Cloud HQ is currently purchasing electric utility services from the City. Rather, the City and Cloud HQ are in conversation over how such service would be provided in the future.
Negotiating with the City does not make Cloud HQ a customer of the City’s electric utility services. Instead, whether Cloud HQ is considered a customer of the City’s electric utility service will depend on whether it has purchased electric utility services from the City or entered into a contractual relationship agreeing to purchase such services.
The City referred to Cloud HQ as a “future customer” in its request to the Commissioner. This modification implies that Cloud HQ has not yet purchased electric utility services but intends to do so in the future. If Cloud HQ is a customer of the City’s electric utility services, data about it will be classified under section 13.685. However, until such purchase or agreement, these data are not about a customer and are presumptively public data under Chapter 13.
Issue 2: Are construction plans, communications, and similar data related to a city providing electric utility services to a future customer classified as not public data under Minnesota Statutes, section 13.685?
In its request for an advisory opinion to the Commissioner, the City described various types of data related to its work in providing Cloud HQ electric utility services:
All of the Electric Data are about providing Cloud HQ with electric utility service. The Electric Data that are responsive to Mr. Sorenson’s request exist solely because the City, in its role as an electric utility, will provide electric utility service to the Cloud HQ site. Put another way, if the site were located within the service territory of another utility, then the Electric Data would not exist. Given this fact, the City interpreted all of the Electric Data to be data on a municipal electric utility customer.
The City mentioned different types of data it maintains: “plans for the layout, construction, and cost allocations for electric utility facilities to be constructed exclusively to provide services to a future municipal utility customer” and “internal communications, [] communications with other utilities or agencies, and [] communications or negotiations with the future customer[].”
The Commissioner does not have access to the data as described but cautions the City with application of section 13.685 to data it maintains because it is planning to provide electric utility service to a customer. Construction plans, communications, and documentation regarding the City’s work to provide utility services are not necessarily data about a specific customer. Instead, these data appear to be about the City’s work to provide electric utility services. Data about the City’s utility work are generally presumptively public. To the extent these data reveal data about an electric utility customer, then those data about the customer would be withheld as they are classified as private or nonpublic under section 13.685.
As noted in Issue 1, Cloud HQ was not a municipal electric utility service customer at the time of Mr. Sorenson’s data request. As a result, any construction plans, communications, and similar data related to providing Cloud HQ with utility services cannot be classified as not public data under section 13.685, as there are no data within those documents that are about a customer. Instead, these data are presumptively public unless another statutory section, temporary classification, or federal law classify the data as not public.
The Commissioner would like to add one final comment. In its advisory opinion request materials, the City mentioned it had not signed a non-disclosure agreement with Cloud HQ. Even when a government entity signs a non-disclosure agreement with a private party, such an agreement may not limit access to public government data. Provisions of such agreements that are contrary to law are not enforceable. (See Advisory Opinion 22-006.)
Based on the facts and information provided, the Commissioner’s opinion on the issues is as follows:
Signed:
Tamar Gronvall
Commissioner
June 9, 2025
Government Data
Municipal utility customer data
Classification of data
