Communities revolt against data centers – and win

If there’s one thing Republicans and Democrats agree on in 2025 — at least at the local level — it’s halting large, power-hungry data center projects.

For communities fed up with high electricity bills and pollution from power plants, data centers have become an obvious target. Battles against new data centers have escalated this year as grassroots groups, voters and local lawmakers demand more accountability from developers. They have already been able to block or halt tens of billions of dollars in potential investments in proposed data centers. And they don’t give up.

“We expect opposition to continue to grow,” says Mikkel Villa, an analyst at research firm Data Center Watch, who has been tracking campaigns against data centers across the United States since 2023.

Latest collection a report It found that developers either canceled or delayed 20 projects after facing opposition from local residents, accounting for $98 billion in proposed investments in the second quarter of this year. In fact, from late March through June, $24.2 billion worth of projects were frozen and $73.7 billion delayed. The group notes that this is an increase compared to the 16 projects blocked or postponed from 2023 through the first quarter of this year.

The number of proposed data center projects has increased, which is a big reason why opposition is also growing. Inventory in the four largest data center markets in North America — Northern Virginia, Chicago, Atlanta and Phoenix — grew 43 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of this year. According to commercial real estate firm CBRE. But plans to create massive new facilities have also emerged Battles via Nation.

Data centers consume a lot of electricity, especially for the more powerful chips used in new AI models. The energy demand for data centers is expected to grow by 22 percent by the end of the year Compared to last year. A high-density cluster of servers in an AI data center may use as much as 80 to 100 power houses, or over 100 kilowatts, According to Dan Thompsonprincipal research analyst at S&P Global. Amnesty International too It requires a lot of water To keep servers cool, generate electricity and can annually use the indoor needs of 18.5 million American households By 2028, according to one estimate.

Google It dropped its plans for a new data center In Franklin Township, Indiana, in September after residents He raised concerns about the amount of water and electricity the new data center would use. The Indianapolis City-County Council was reportedly expected to deny the project’s rezoning request. This victory for Indiana residents was not mentioned in the data center monitoring report, which is only updated with information through June.

Other data center projects moving forward or already operating are still facing resistance. For example, Elon Musk’s xAI device, He faces a possible lawsuit from the NAACP and Southern Environmental Law Center regarding pollution from its data center in Memphis. Maximum nitrogen dioxide concentration levels have jumped by 79 percent in the area surrounding the data center since it began operating in 2024, according to Reuters. Research from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville requested time magazine.

xAI, which is building Second, a larger data center In Memphis, it did not immediately respond to a request for comment from EdgeBut, he says, “We are moving toward a future where we can harness the full power of our group to solve intractable problems.” Website.

“No community should be forced to sacrifice clean air, clean water, or safe homes so that corporations and billionaires can build energy-hungry facilities,” the NAACP said in a statement. Guidelines that it Shared with Edge In September For other grassroots groups working to hold data center developers accountable for their impact on neighborhoods.

Meta confronts A backlash Opposite the largest data center planned to date in Richland Parish, Louisiana. Enter local facilities I broke ground this month On two of the three gas plants it is building to meet that facility’s electricity needs, which are expected to reach Three times the amount of energy New Orleans uses in one year. “Entergy LA customers are now prepared to support Meta data center costs,” the Union of Concerned Scientists says in a report. Blog post for Novemberincluding an estimated $3.2 billion for the three gas-fired plants and a new $550 million transmission line. On the other hand, Entergy asserts that “Entergy’s Electric Meta Payments will reduce what customers pay for flexibility upgrades by approximately 10%,” according to Communications Director Brandon Scardigli.

“Our agreement with Entergy is designed to ensure that other customers do not have to pay to use energy in our data center,” says Ashley Settle, a Meta spokesperson, in an email to Edge. Settle adds that Meta contributes $15 million to Entergy’s taxpayer support program and more than $200 million to improve local infrastructure.

“Now, we have a ghost guy — data centers that are big energy users who come in and, in many states, get great deals on wholesale electricity rates, when regular consumers don’t have that kind of leverage,” said Tony Reams, a professor of environmental justice at the University of Michigan and a former Energy Department official under President Biden. Edge After the elections.

States, both red and blue, are starting to put some restrictions on those attractive deals. After South Dakota lawmakers rejected a bill that would have offered developers a sales tax refund, Applied Digital has paused its plans for a $16 billion AI campus In the country. Virginia, Maryland, and MinnesotaAt the same time, it has introduced legislation that attempts to curb tax incentives for data centers or energy costs for other consumers, the Data Center Watch report says.

Nationally, More than 230 health and environmental groups They called for a halt to the construction of data centers. The organizations, led by the nonprofit Food and Water Watch, sent A letter to Congress with their demands in December. They argue that there are not enough policies to prevent data centers from burdening neighboring communities with higher bills and more pollution. President Donald Trump issuedArtificial intelligence business plan” in July which aims to Accelerating data center development in part by rolling back environmental regulations.

Vela predicts that with next year’s midterm elections, we’ll likely see more data center battles impact local politics. “It will be very interesting to track how this opposition affects the regulatory framework,” he says.