NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Data centers are increasingly becoming fixtures of the American landscape, with demand for the hulking structures ballooning in recent years due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
States are now competing for big data center developments, with many lawmakers and utilities providers seeing them as an economic bonanza. Legislation is promising lucrative financial incentives to big tech companies and easing restrictions on construction, siting and energy infrastructure to power massive computing clusters.
In Louisiana, utilities regulators in August greenlit upward of $3 billion in grid improvements proposed by utilities provider Entergy solely to serve Meta’s largest data center, which requires more than twice the electricity powering New Orleans.
Yet with regulators sidelined from Meta and Entergy’s electricity use contract, consumer advocacy groups and some officials have raised concerns that Louisiana residents will be paying higher electricity bills down the line, as key details about the contract’s terms have been withheld from the public.
As more data centers pop up, demanding massive amounts of electricity and water, lawmakers and regulators are debating how to balance anticipated economic benefits with concerns about how the world’s most powerful corporations may undermine the economic and environmental health of their communities.
With utilities seeking to invest billions of dollars into new energy infrastructure tied to the nationwide data center buildout, it’s important for the public to understand how they may be footing the bill for rising electricity costs.
