Officials keep approving despite public outcry
Data centers remain a hot topic across the country with heavy focus in Georgia as more attempt to build in rural areas. Bartow and Floyd Counties are forefront in the battle with citizens opposing the centers and officials voting to accommodate them.
Berry College recently hosted an event featuring two speakers on the subject – Dr. Amy Sharma who talked about chip production and Jesse Demonbron-Chapman who spoke about the Georgia legislature failing to pass any legislation on data center regulation.
Regulations are currently left up to local municipalities. According to emails from the Cartersville Planning Commission to a resident, one power substation is shown on the plans for the Switch Data Center located on the Bartow/Paulding County line.
The commission approved plans for four buildings in Phase 1 with no master phasing plan ever submitted. Officials state they don’t know how many phases Switch has planned or whether any of those will be located in Paulding County, but any building in that county would need approval from Paulding County government.
Rome and Floyd County residents are petitioning the development authority demanding an immediate cease and desist of the proposed data center in Silver Creek. The petition also requires independent environmental and health studies, hold public hearings, and protect property, water, and health.
The project involves rezoning agricultural land to construction a seven-building, 200-plus acre industrial campus. This joins a proposal to use 15 acres along Highway 53 across from the Lowes Distribution Center for a data center. Developers signed an option with the Rome-Floyd County Development Authority last December. Under the option, Project Sassy has the first right to purchase the land over the next 18-months. The land is selling for $60,000 an acre.
Changes, including an executive order and state regulations, could alter how data centers are built but it’s unclear how they affect proposals already submitted.
President Donald Trump signed two executive orders this year related to data centers. One was EO 14318 that removes Biden-era barriers to building data centers and launches an initiative to provide grants and loans to qualifying projects. Trump supports data centers, stating they are part of national security because China is mass building them. TV advertisements paid for by data center lobbyists are reiterating that idea.
The second action by Trump is signing is the Rate Payer Protection Pledge which orders new data centers to build, bring, or buy their power supply rather than increase demand on local and statewide power companies. Tech companies joined Trump in the signing.
Cleanview, a data visualization software company tracking data center projects, said 90% of those that planned capacity were going to add their own power plants.
The power supply debate comes among escalated power rates. Nationally, state utility regulators like the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) were asked to approve $31 billion in rate increases.
Georgia Power gained the Georgia PSC’s approval in December to expand power generation to supply data centers with the power they need. The power company giant claims the expansion will reduce customers’ bills.
The PSC’s unanimous decision allows Georgia Power to invest $16 billion to build new power assets. Additional infrastructure to tie into the power grid and electricity supply costs could raise the price tag to $50 or $60 billion. Neither the power company or the PSC stated where the investment will come from – whether Georgia Power is taking it from its investment monies or expecting to pass it down to customers.
However, Trump’s power initiative to limit effects on residential customers isn’t enough to satisfy citizen’s concerns in Northwest Georgia. It doesn’t mitigate other problems occurring nationally like eminent domain of farms and properties water supply issues, or pollution concerns.
Melody Dareing is a freelance writer for publications in the U.S, Canada, the UK and Germany. She is a former news director of Adelphia Channel 4 and WBHF Radio. She is on Facebook, X, YouTube, content on Substack, and has a podcast on Rumble.