Amid Heatwaves, a Growing Concern Rises About Data Centers

Over the past few weeks, states across the country have experienced scorching temperatures. From Texas to Maine, nearly 160 million people were placed under heat alerts as forecasters predicted temperatures up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit above seasonal averages. In the Southeast, conditions were so severe that, in late June, the Department of Energy declared a power emergency, allowing Duke Energy Carolinas to temporarily operate certain electric generating units at full capacity to avoid blackouts and maintain grid reliability.

This situation has raised concerns about the growing strain on the electric grid, particularly from data centers, which are rapidly expanding in the Southeast and are known to be significant energy  consumers.

Data centers house large collections of computer servers used for artificial intelligence (AI) processing, cloud computing, and data storage. There are over 5,400 data centers located across the country, and this number is expected to rise dramatically to meet the growing demand for AI. Additionally, data centers require extensive amounts of water to cool the machines and a significant amount of electricity or power to operate them, placing strains on entire communities.

“The growth in electricity demand from data centers is threatening the South’s transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.”

Advocates warn that the services these centers provide may not be worth the costs. Currently, about 56 percent of the electricity used to power US data centers comes from fossil fuels, and that number is expected to rise, thereby increasing carbon emissions and exacerbating climate change. In places like Memphis, Tennessee, activists have decried a data center owned by Elon Musk that is not yet connected to the power grid and depends on 35 methane gas turbines that funnel 1,200 to 2,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides per year into a community already burdened with high asthma rates.

One side effect that has caught many communities by surprise is the noise pollution produced by data centers. “One community I worked with was hit with a noise level that, if not managed carefully, could be damaging to hearing. The sound is a bit hypersonic. It’s not even a welcome kind of noise. It’s very screechy,” said Lane Boldman, executive director of the Kentucky Conservation Committee, in an interview with NPQ.

This nonprofit runs education programs to help communities understand what it means when a data center comes to their neighborhood. Often, people assume that a data center means jobs for the community, but after the initial construction, many of those jobs cease. “We make sure that communities are aware of this and ask hard questions about the long-term job creation aspects of this because there are other things you could build that don’t use tons of energy,” Boldman said.

Despite the fact that data centers produce very few local jobs, the South has become a hotspot for data center development in recent years. The region offers affordable land, abundant energy, and generous tax incentives. However, for advocates, it also raises concerns about how communities that are already vulnerable to the impact of climate change will be affected, especially amid the continued reliance on fossil fuels to power data centers.

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC)—the largest nonprofit, nonpartisan environmental legal advocacy organization based in the South—has raised concerns about the electric company Dominion Energy’s assertion that data center growth in Virginia will need a substantial increase in methane gas-powered plants.

“The growth in electricity demand from data centers is threatening the South’s transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy,” Gurdon Thompson, energy program leader at the SELC, declared in a statement.

The group points out that “Virginia is known as the data center capital of the world,” with over 300 data centers located in the state and 90 percent located in Northern Virginia alone. Northern Virginia is also home to 35 percent of the world’s hyperscale data centers, which are typically 10,000 square feet or more and use 100 megawatts of power. In the state, 61 percent of the electricity consumed by the data center comes from fossil fuel power plants, while less than 8 percent comes from renewable sources. In many ways, advocacy efforts in the state can have far-reaching implications for how data centers operate in the country and globally.

In an interview with NPQ, Matthew Allenbaugh, the Virginia campaign coordinator for Appalachian Voices, pointed out that hyperscale data centers can consume as much power from the electric grid as 80,000 homes.

“Some of these largest facilities are equivalent to building a small city every one to two years, “ he said.

Of particular concern to Allenbaugh is the finding from a study conducted by the state’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, which found that data centers in Virginia could nearly double the state’s total energy use over the next decade. He added that as annual heat waves persist, customers are already seeing increased utility costs—and this trend is likely to continue to worsen, as customers are forced to subsidize the cost of data centers infrastructure.

Currently, Virginia has no statewide data center regulations, although several localities have begun implementing ordinances to ensure that the voices of community members are heard and they have a say in the approval process of new centers.

Working closely with big tech executives, Dominion Energy has stated that they have no intention of slowing down contracting energy out for data centers in the state. Yet Allebaugh noted that this decision could drive up residential utility bills over $400 a year by 2040, especially as temperatures continue to increase and people need to run their air conditioning to stay comfortable and safe. Dominion Energy shares rose 1% after their statement.

Allebaugh specified that because data centers—particularly hyperscale facilities—consume such massive amounts of electricity, continued growth could result in a tripling of the state’s overall energy demand in the coming decades. This anticipated surge in energy consumption from data centers  is compounded by the fact that, especially in the South, residents will require more energy for cooling in the warmer months.

“It’s widely noted that solar energy is the fastest means of getting new electrons onto the grid, so we are advocating for a clean and affordable buildout of the infrastructure needed to power these facilities.”

Advocates say that it is critical to act now, and it is increasingly evident that renewable energy must be treated as a necessity—not an alternative.

“It’s widely noted that solar energy is the fastest means of getting new electrons onto the grid, so we are advocating for a clean and affordable buildout of the infrastructure needed to power these facilities,” Allebaugh said.

But that transition has faced significant roadblocks. Efforts to expand solar power have stalled for various reasons, including misinformation at the local level and potential cuts to solar and wind tax credits at the federal level.

Amid all of this, Appalachian Voices is advocating for facilities that utilize clean energy to be prioritized. Allebaugh pointed out that tax incentives has turned Virginia into the data center capital of the world, but the state should tie that generous tax to facilities that utilize best practices around energy efficiency, moderately curtail their load during peak times, and are making efforts to reduce their water use.

“We’re not saying data centers are bad,” he said. “What we’re saying is that…maybe we should reevaluate who all is getting the sales and use tax exemption and maybe put some strings on it so that only the best actors and highest performing best practices facilities are the ones that are going to be sited in the neighborhoods that we’re part of.”