Data‑centre Backlash Grows

In Nevada, the state’s biggest utility says proposed data centers would require about three times the electricity used by Las Vegas, and it likely cannot serve that load without more fossil-fuel generation. That puts Nevada’s voter-approved target of 50% renewable electricity by 2030 in direct conflict with the new building boom. (pbs.org) This is not a national problem in the abstract. In Boulder City, residents fighting a proposed data center spent this week warning about higher power bills, water use, and noise from a project that still needs voter approval in November to become an allowed land use. (reviewjournal.com) The strain starts with scale. The Electric Power Research Institute says new data centers are now commonly planned at 100 to 1,000 megawatts, which is roughly the power demand of 80,000 to 800,000 homes. (epri.com) Artificial intelligence is the part making planners nervous. The same Electric Power Research Institute paper estimates a ChatGPT request at about 2.9 watt-hours versus about 0.3 watt-hours for a traditional Google search, or roughly 10 times as much electricity per query. (epri.com) Nationally, the institute projects data centers could rise from about 4% of United States electricity generation today to 4.6% to 9.1% by 2030. The catch is that the demand is clustered, with 15 states accounting for 80% of data-center load and Virginia alone at about one-quarter of its electric load in 2023. (epri.com) That concentration is why the bill fights are so ugly around the Mid-Atlantic. An April 9 National Public Radio report said wholesale electricity prices rose 267% over the last five years in places close to data centers, while also noting that some analysts think aging-grid problems are being blamed on data centers too easily. (northcountrypublicradio.org) In the PJM Interconnection power market, which covers parts of 13 Mid-Atlantic and Midwest states plus the District of Columbia, the market monitor said data-center load added $7.3 billion, or 82%, to the last capacity auction’s revenue, pushing the total to $16.1 billion. Capacity charges are one of the costs that eventually flow into customer bills. (utilitydive.com) Not everyone agrees on the diagnosis. Brookings wrote in March that data centers raise bills in two ways — by forcing new generation and by forcing new transmission lines and substations — but it also pointed to a broader national crunch, including a projected 49-gigawatt generation shortfall through 2028. (brookings.edu) States are now trying to stop those costs from spilling onto households. Georgia’s Public Service Commission approved a rule in January 2025 letting Georgia Power charge new customers using more than 100 megawatts under special terms so ordinary customers are not left covering the risk. (psc.ga.gov) Virginia moved in the same direction in November 2025. The State Corporation Commission created a new rate class for customers demanding 25 megawatts or more, including many data centers, after residential bills had already been squeezed by the region’s power-market surge. (scc.virginia.gov) The backlash is no longer just about spreadsheets. In Indianapolis this week, Councilman Ron Gibson said someone fired 13 shots at his front door and left a note reading “No Data Centers” after he backed a rezoning tied to a proposed project. (apnews.com) So the fight has shifted from “build more server farms” to “who pays, who waits, and who gives up on climate targets first.” Nevada lawmakers are debating new rules, utilities are rewriting rate structures, and neighborhoods that barely knew what a data center was a year ago are now treating one like a power plant next door. (pbs.org)