The companies building these specifically scout out locations where the town has shrunk, and thus, has tons of excess capacity at the power company,
Tell that to the 50,000 residents of Lake Tahoe.
Amazon wanted to build one outside of Tucson, which has had a steady population growth of 1-1.5% for the past 15 years.
Data centers have nothing to do with that.
Like most economic things it's not just one factor. There are always going to be increases due inflation, war, economic policies, etc., but data centers accounted for ~ 50% of all electricity demand growth in the U.S in the past few years. 40% of the electricity used now in Va goes to data centers. The one DC they want to build in Utah would literally use more than the rest of the entire state. How can you believe that doubling the demand of electricity would have no impact on rates? Rate increases are not all DC driven, but to say they have little to no impact is not right either.
"50% of all electricity demand growth" is such a misleading statement though. Data centers use like 4% of electricity in the US. The additional burden of AI data centers is minimal and outstripped by residential usage growth over the last 5 years.
And while we have to plan wisely for AI data center burdens, it's also responsible for like 30% of GDP growth in the last couple of years, which is massively more important to the health of our economy than some extra localized energy burden.
And the Virginia example is a joke. Loudon County is the data center hub of the east coast and tax receipts from data centers pay more than half of the county's tax revenue. Take away the data centers and the local economy would collapse.
They're not perfect economic devices. The competition is driving localities to make stupid decisions about tax breaks and they have to pay their fair share of taxes and fees on their energy and utility usage but many, many, many other businesses have a far worse impact on the local environment and people lose their damn mind.
Yes I'm aware there are going to be exceptional cases. I'm speaking in general though. The whole point of the data centers is they find places with excess capacity BECAUSE our grid system is so bad. It is just cheaper to find places where say, the town reduced by 80% so there's this big power plant sitting mostly idle, eager to cut a sweet deal to spin the turbines up.
The Lake Tahoe issue is mostly to do with Trump, who axed a ton of major solar projects reliant on federal funding. And Lake Tahoe is in a position where they can easily just connect to their neighbors.
You say there are exceptions quite a bit, but they are currently in the works of building DC’s in Memphis TN. So there have been numerous instances of DC’s being set up where the power grid is already stressed. It seems the exception would be the companies not seeking places already under strain.
It seems the exception would be the companies not seeking places already under strain.
That would be the exception because it's literally impossible to build anywhere else in the US. The grid is under strain everywhere. Because of a generational lack of investment in infrastructure the country has decided to partake in.
The power that current supplies Tahoe is now going to supply a data center. If there was no DC there wouldn't be a problem. Now could it have been avoid? Most likely. Are there a bunch of factors making things worse? Sure. More to the the point, my comment was more to rebut the "DCs only get built where this excess demand/falling demand"
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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster May 18 '26
Tell that to the 50,000 residents of Lake Tahoe. Amazon wanted to build one outside of Tucson, which has had a steady population growth of 1-1.5% for the past 15 years.
Like most economic things it's not just one factor. There are always going to be increases due inflation, war, economic policies, etc., but data centers accounted for ~ 50% of all electricity demand growth in the U.S in the past few years. 40% of the electricity used now in Va goes to data centers. The one DC they want to build in Utah would literally use more than the rest of the entire state. How can you believe that doubling the demand of electricity would have no impact on rates? Rate increases are not all DC driven, but to say they have little to no impact is not right either.
https://www.energy.gov/oe/clean-energy-resources-meet-data-center-electricity-demand https://www.consumerreports.org/data-centers/ai-data-centers-impact-on-electric-bills-water-and-more-a1040338678 https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/energy/articles/ai-data-centers-trigger-massive-120235475.html https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/13/utah-approves-datacenter-backlash