Georgia lawmakers introduced 20 pieces of legislation this session aimed at the data center industry. None of them passed. Now, community members and advocates say they’re disappointed none of the bills made it to the governor’s desk — and they’re concerned about the impact of the data center boom on ordinary Georgians.
“I’m definitely frustrated by that,” said Wanda Mosley, a South Fulton resident and the policy director with Black Voters Matter.
Georgia has quickly become one of the top states for new data center development. Nonprofit organization Science For Georgia reports around 100 data centers in use in Metro Atlanta. At least 40 are planned for the Southside. Recently, Coweta County commissioners greenlit rezoning for “Project Sail,” an 800-acre, $17 billion data center development near Newnan.
While some celebrate the influx of data centers as a boon for parts of Georgia that need jobs and investment, the industry has also drawn opposition from many concerned about data centers’ use of water and electricity and their impact on surrounding areas.
The outcry prompted the flurry of activity at the state legislature.
Lawmakers debated bills that would prevent the costs of electricity infrastructure built for data centers from being passed on to regular customers. They introduced bills to revoke the tax break benefiting data centers and even proposed a total moratorium. The sheer volume of activity and public outcry had advocates like Mosley hopeful.
She’s also a community organizer, educating folks on what she sees as the impacts of data centers. She says she was surprised by the lack of action in the Georgia General Assembly, especially after two Democrats unseated Republican incumbents in last year’s Public Service Commission races.
“I was optimistic coming into the legislative session because each of those legislators, they’re on the ballot in November, and they saw what happened last November,” said Mosley. “They know, and they heard the loud, resounding message that voters in Georgia said, ‘We are tired of data centers.’”
That election turned heavily on rising power bills, and consumer advocates are worried the influx of data centers to Georgia could drive bills even higher. Data centers use enormous amounts of electricity, and utilities like Georgia Power are expanding power plants and shoring up transmission lines to serve the predicted spike in energy demand.
But because the industry is relatively new to Georgia and many of the proposed data centers aren’t built yet, analysts worry that utilities are overestimating the demand — and therefore overbuilding.
“Everybody who uses electricity in Georgia faces the risk of ultimately having to pick up the cost of building power infrastructure that the state may or may not need,” said Liz Coyle, executive director of the consumer advocacy group Georgia Watch.
The Georgia Public Service Commission and Georgia Power have taken steps to ensure data centers pay for infrastructure that’s built to serve them. But Coyle said those measures don’t go far enough, and they only apply to Georgia Power. Big customers like data centers can choose their electric company, so some may pick municipal utilities or electric membership cooperatives instead.
That leaves Georgians who rely on those utilities at risk of paying extra costs, Coyle said.
Environmental advocates are also concerned because Georgia Power is relying heavily on fossil fuels to serve the forecasted data center demand, building new natural gas-powered turbines and keeping coal-fired power plants running past their previously approved closing dates.
“The data center invasion has blown up our progress on clean energy in Georgia,” said Mark Woodall, the Sierra Club’s legislative chair in Georgia.
Data centers also use large amounts of water to keep their banks of computer servers from overheating, another key concern for many advocates.
“Our farmers have done a really good job of cutting back on their water use,” said Amy Sharma of Science for Georgia. “Now data centers are just coming in and being allowed to just kind of hoover up all of that excess water, which is only going to work until we hit our next drought.”
The state’s next drought is already here. Most of Georgia is currently experiencing some level of drought conditions, which have been worsening for months.
Fayette County organizer Diana Dietz said she was disappointed in the legislature, too. Dietz told WABE last year about some of her neighbors’ experiences and concerns about the growing number of data centers.
Still, she has some hope for state-level regulation of them in the future.
“We have next year, right? So maybe every year, as we get new forward-thinking legislators in place, who are familiar with this industry and don’t want to allow it to ruin communities … eventually we’ll get some guardrails,” Dietz said. “Hopefully, it won’t be too late.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Grist and WABE, Atlanta’s National Public Radio affiliate.
