Now the concept is emerging in the 13-state mid-Atlantic grid and elsewhere as massive data centers are coming online faster than power plants can be built and connected to grids. Construction continues at Entergy’s Orange County https://ishanmishra.in/the-technology-trends-that-will-shape-the-coming-decade/ Advanced Power Station, a 1,215-megawatt facility, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, in Orange, Texas. That’s why Spotlight PA exists, but we can’t keep digging without your support. But that’s impossible if “We the People” don’t have information about what decisions they’re making and how they spend our money.
At least one central Ohio local government, Jerome Township, put a moratorium on new data centers as it weighs their effects on the community and local services. The $246 million facility from Edged Data Centers promises to be water and energy efficient, saving more than 92 million gallons of water each year and slashing energy overhead. Data center development is concentrated mostly along the Wasatch Front and a small number of larger facilities dominate the market. Should it move forward, referendum organizers would have 45 days to gather 5,422 signatures and meet other criteria to put a measure on the ballot seeking to overturn the commission’s May 4 vote to advance O’Leary’s data center plans. Box Elder County residents could find themselves added to the list of active, data center-focused pushback efforts after paperwork was filed last week seeking to put a referendum before voters.
Data Center Watch also reported that voters in Cascade Locks, Oregon, recalled two port authority officials who supported a Roadhouse Digital data Center. Data Center Watch reports the industry’s growth in Virginia is being met with “intense” opposition from 42 opposition groups. The organization also reported at least 142 activist groups across 24 states are launching efforts to block data center construction and expansion.
Ohio suspends data center tax break as tech firms face pressure to pay the cost to power AI
- “Even if there wasn’t climate change, we’d be feeling the effects of droughts more acutely, because water demand is going up and up, to feed more people and water more lawns and crops.
- While data centers have existed for decades, the massive, energy-intensive versions known as hyperscale data centers have only proliferated in recent years amid a growing appetite for artificial intelligence.
- Georgia is home to more than 200 data center facilities and their thirst for water is turning into a political flashpoint.
- Based in Rio de Janeiro, Elea operates nine campuses with more than 300 MW of capacity and over 1 GW in development, including its planned Rio AI City project, which could reach up to 3.2 GW powered by renewable energy.
- Aligned Data Centers unveiled Project Caprock, a 540 MW, 313-acre campus in Hale County, Texas, with six facilities totaling 1.65 million square feet and a projected $5 billion economic impact.
- In Asia-Pacific data center news, Malaysia’s palm oil companies are setting aside vast tracts of land for new AI data center construction.
Neighboring counties, meanwhile, have approved temporary moratoriums on data center projects, in addition to counties https://www.cocoe.info/news-for-this-month-4/ across the state, including Fayette, Daviess and Bell, among others. Kentucky’s city and county governments are reckoning with the potential of data center development, which has often brought about anger and distrust from community members. The new hyperscale data center, set to be built in southwest Louisville, will be the first in Jefferson County.
The top complaints from communities near potential data center locations, per the Gardner report, include noise/light/quality of life impacts; land use/place preservation; water use/hydrology; infrastructure and traffic; energy and grid capacity; and environmental/ecological worries. The analysis notes that 17 data center projects were canceled and 18 delayed due to opposition between 2023 and 2025. One of the most recent actions took place in Reno, Nevada, on Thursday when city council members there voted to support a 30-day moratorium on data center projects that could be extended in a follow-up vote on June 1. Others, including Vermont’s S205, seek to put blanket, statewide data center bans in place while impact studies are conducted. Data center buildouts are getting bigger and more powerful, with average capacity per facility more than quadrupling over the past decade, according to a report released last month by the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.
Artificial Intelligence wants to go nuclear. Will it work?
- About two-thirds of upcoming datacenters, which typically require a large amount of water to operate, are set to be built in places that have been among the driest in the country over the past year.
- A virtual data center is a pool of computing power, storage and networking delivered through software rather than tied to one building.
- It runs on top of physical data centers but acts like a flexible facility you can set up and resize on demand.
- But electricity prices are rising faster in some states with far less data-center development—for instance, New Jersey and Maryland.
- In 2024, the entire Columbus system — including suburbs like New Albany and Hilliard — consumed an average of 149 million gallons per day, Newsome said.
- Construction continues at Entergy’s Orange County Advanced Power Station, a 1,215-megawatt facility, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, in Orange, Texas.
In 2024, the entire Columbus system — including suburbs like New Albany and Hilliard — consumed an average of 149 million gallons per day, Newsome said. AEP sought the change to ensure that data centers pay for the infrastructure required to serve the centers, rather than forcing other customers to foot the bill. In 2026, Meta plans to open Prometheus, a 1 gigawatt data center in New Albany that will carry both massive computing capability and power consumption. State lawmakers earlier this year adopted reforms meant, in part, to stimulate more energy supply as demand skyrockets. “It kind of helps us weed out any company in any industry, quite frankly, that is not going to be a good revenue generator for the community because they need to have met that formula,” she said. And abatements apply only to the data center https://contrefacon-riposte.info/the-beginners-guide-to-16/ facilities, not the underlying land.
Texas is giving data centers more than $1 billion in tax breaks each year
As the debate over data centers grows in Oklahoma, cities in at least seven other states have taken action to pause or prohibit development amidst concerns about water use and the impact on residents’ electric bills. Some consumer advocates say tech companies’ fair share should also include the rising cost of electricity, grid equipment or natural gas that’s driven by their demand. “‘Fair share’ is a pretty squishy term, and so it’s something that the industry likes to say because ‘fair’ can mean different things to different people,” said Ari Peskoe, who directs the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard University. Many of the planned facilities are expected to rely on a mix of local grid power and independent sources, including nuclear and renewable energy. The energy demands of AI workloads have drawn increasing scrutiny, particularly in communities near proposed sites where residents have seen their energy bills increase.
