Legislature makes another effort to study impacts of data centers

Yahoo

02-04-2025

There are almost no environmental regulations overseeing data centers in the state, but lawmakers, including those in East Lyme and Waterford, are seeking to change that.
Legislators renewed an effort in the current session to require reports on the impact of large data centers on local power grids, following a company's proposal to build a large center next to the Millstone Power Station in Waterford.
Rhode Island-based NE Edge proposes to build a pair of data centers totaling 1.2 million square feet on the Millstone property, a location that lets them buy power directly from the nuclear power plant and reducing the center's energy costs.
Requiring impact studies, state Rep. Nick Menapace, D-East Lyme, said Monday, is the first step to more effective legislation regulating the amount of energy and water large data centers consume. Menapace introduced the bill along with state Sen. Martha Marx, D-New London, and state Rep. Nick Gauthier, D-Waterford.
Last year, a similar bill drafted in response to the Millstone plan failed to gain approval.
The state Siting Council rejected the Millstone plan last year, saying it needs more information.
Susan Adams, state policy director for Millstone, said Tuesday that there is continued interest in data centers.
A second bill in the General Assembly would quantify data center resource consumption. There are about 60 data centers in Connecticut, according to datacentermap.com. The one proposed for Millstone would be larger than any of the others.
There are questions, such as exactly how much energy large centers consume and how much noise they make.
'East Lyme people are concerned they'll be stuck with all negatives and no positives,' Menapace said. 'A lot of people feel that's what happened with Millstone (power station), Waterford got the monetary benefit and East Lyme got stuck with an eyesore.'
The current bill, HB 892, is before the legislature's Energy and Technology Committee and isn't likely to advance soon, Menapace said.
However, a more detailed bill requiring data center impact studies, SB 1292, has more traction. Its sponsor, state Rep. Mary Mushinsky (D–Wallingford), said the bill attempts to set standards for an industry the state rushed into with virtually no regulations.
'That makes me uncomfortable,' Mushinsky said last week.
Mushinsky said while useful and economically stimulating, data centers have a huge energy demand, and legislators want to ensure consistent grid reliability.
Data centers, she said, also use diesel generators to help meet their own demands when strain on the grid is highest, like hot summer days. A past unsuccessful attempt to regulate data centers had included regulations overseeing diesel output, Mushinsky said. Diesel generators can produce fumes and noise.
The bill would give the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection authority over data centers' energy consumption, Mushinsky said.
It would require quarterly reports on the amount of electricity, fuel and other sources used for cooling, the source of any water that is used and agreements between the centers and any electric utilities.
The proposed Millstone center is considered a 'behind-the-meter' center, which takes power directly from energy producers rather than the grid.
'The question is if they're the first customer, does everyone else become secondary?' Mushinsky said.
Four years ago, state Sen. Norm Needleman (D-Essex) led the effort to attract data centers to Connecticut with tax incentives. Now he seeks to remove the tax incentive for behind-the-meter data centers in a separate proposed bill.
'Anything that's located at a power plant should not have the tax incentives that were offered for projects that were put on the grid,' he said last week, adding centers shouldn't be allowed to 'double-dip,' not just at Millstone but also at other plants.
Needleman said when the incentives passed, legislators had not considered 'all of the possible impacts like behind-the-meter centers and what they really could do to the environment.'
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