NC House Democrats Call for State Action While Duke Hides Information on Subsidies
As data center proposals have proliferated in North Carolina, opposition has quickly risen to fight them, on grounds that they are water and energy hogs, sources of air pollution, and emitters of continuous loud industrial noise and vibrations.
Local Governments Take Action
Recent months have seen an increasing number of towns and counties adopt or consider moratoriums on modern hyperscale data center development. In central North Carolina, Chatham and Orange counties and the town of Apex in Wake County have adopted such legal pauses, which provide an opportunity to draw up and adopt standards for their location and operation of the massive new hyperscale data centers. Durham County is scheduled to consider a moratorium adoption this week.
In western North Carolina, Clay, Madison, Swain, and Watauga counties and the towns of Boone, Brevard, Clyde, and Canton have adopted moratoriums.
State Lawmakers Take Action
The issue has now gained the attention of multiple state legislators, who have introduced legislation regulating some aspects of massive data center proliferation: House Bill 1063, the “Ratepayer and Resource Protection Act.” The bill finds that “the rapid growth of large-scale data centers imposes unusually large and concentrated demands on electric generation, transmission, distribution, and water infrastructure” which can shift costs “onto residential customers, small businesses, and local governments through higher utility rates and increased public expenditures, exacerbating cost-of-living pressures statewide.”
The bill would establish a wide-reaching set of state standards applicable to large data centers, require that they receive a certificate from the NC Utilities Commission, require pre-construction release of information on water and energy demands, add requirements for carbon-free power source generation, restrict evaporative water usage, add rules on electric rates for these data centers, as well as other specific rules and requirements. Both state and local tax incentives for data center construction and operation would be barred.
The bill appears to be silent on local land use zoning authority to regulate the location of data centers within cities and counties. However, in a news conference announcing the introduction of the bill, NC Rep. Lindsey Prather (D-Buncombe) pointed to the local governments around the state that have approved moratoriums pausing data center development in their jurisdictions while they work to determine local land use regulations on the centers, and added, “North Carolinians want us to get ahead of this. … If a company wants to build a data center in North Carolina, they can. They must simply pay their own way and stop shifting the cost onto you, me and families like ours.”
The bill has 35 sponsors, all Democrats. While that has implications for its likelihood of passage, it also suggests that the bill represents a broad consensus among House Democrats, and is likely to be used as a point of emphasis during legislative campaigns around the state, especially in discussions of energy affordability.
Duke Energy’s Hidden Information
Meanwhile, Duke Energy’s resistance to public disclosure of information on the water and power consumption of three new hyperscale data centers it owns in North Carolina, or the cost of public subsidies provided to them, has become a glaring part of the debate.
“It is infuriating, but not surprising, that Duke Energy both benefits from getting sales and usage tax incentives,” said Rani Masri, co-director of the NC Environmental Justice Network, which organizes communities against data centers. “We’re giving Duke Energy money to build something and then we’re paying Duke Energy higher utility rates. It is absolutely absurd. We don’t even know how much money we’re giving away.”
Rising Energy Bills for Families Across NC
Electric bills in North Carolina have surged by 22 percent since 2020. They are set to surge more if Duke’s pending requests for rate hikes are approved. Duke owns its own data centers, allowing it to profit from their capacity. Duke says that 80 percent of its projected new power demand will come from more data centers, and it uses that projected power demand and the cost of building out methane gas infrastructure to generate that power to justify its massive new rate hike.
The situation reeks from the stench of legalized corporate theft on a huge scale, aided and abetted by the pro-polluter legislators who receive electric utility-connected campaign contributions.
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