Data Center Growth and Impact to Georgia Communities

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and the explosive growth of data centers to support it are driving serious concerns about the economic and environmental implications. 

Data centers are foundational to the modern global economy, acting as the physical infrastructure for cloud computing, AI, and digital services. They drive growth by enabling e-commerce, remote work, and financial systems, with projections suggesting they will support trillions of dollars in economic activity by 2027. 

Because of their access to geopolitical power and physical representation of digital dominance, they are attracting massive investment. And that’s causing problems.

What Is a Data Center?

Data centers are facilities equipped with computing and networking resources for storing, processing, and managing digital data. Large data centers have existed for at least 20 years, emerging at the dawn of cloud computing. Today, nearly all electronic information for individuals, businesses, and governments is stored and transmitted in and through data centers.  

Types of Data Centers

Enterprise Data Centers

Enterprise data centers are private facilities that support a single business or organization, and usually host enterprise IT operations.

Colocation Data Centers

A colocation data center provides a shared space for businesses to outsource their IT operations.

Hyperscale Data Centers

Hyperscale data centers are purpose-built for massive compute and data storage. They are colossal single or multi-tenant centers that house thousands upon thousands of servers.

Edge Data Centers

Edge data centers are smaller and are built near the people a business serves. The proximity allows for near-instantaneous connectivity, data processing, and analysis, so that businesses can achieve greater speeds and reduce communication delays.

Modular Data Centers

Portable (or modular) data centers enable businesses to plug-and-play all data center components to a location where data capacity is needed. These modules contain IT equipment and the power and cooling to operate as a small, fully functional data center.

There are currently more than 4,000 data centers just in the United States.

The Environmental Impacts of Data Centers

Up until 2017, data center power consumption was largely flat. Despite new data center construction, improved efficiency kept requirements under control. 

AI changed everything. The emphasis shifted from databases and storage to processing. The chips required for AI are denser and far more power-hungry than previous generations, and data centers house tens of thousands of them in tight clusters. The demand to run and cool them outstrips anything before.

Data Center Cooling Demands

Data centers require enormous amounts of electricity to power their servers, which in turn generate substantial heat. This heat requires cooling systems that consume unholy amounts of water.

Data center electrical load capacities vary from 100 MW to 1,000 MW, about equal to the load from 80,000 to 800,000 homes. A mid-sized data center uses around 100 to 110 million gallons of water annually, equivalent to the annual water usage of about 1,000 U.S. homes. According to the Florida Water & Pollution Control Operators Association:

Large hyperscale facilities (think of the huge cloud data centers) can use 1 to 5 million gallons of water per day under peak conditions. At the upper end (5 million gal/day), that is as much water in a day as a town of 30,000–50,000 people would use.

In addition, data centers consume about 70% of the water they use through evaporation, while returning only about 30% of the water as non-potable wastewater. The impact of a data center’s use of water can be measured primarily by the ratio of consumed water versus returned water.

Water problems with data center projects arise because, in many instances:

• Potential water use is not disclosed to local authorities and communities.
• Permits and zoning approvals do not account for the full impact of water withdrawals, use, and discharge.
• Environmental impact assessments, with specific consideration of water use, are incomplete or outdated.

Since 2022, two-thirds of new data centers are in states facing critical water shortages like California, Arizona, and Texas. Consequently, data centers planning to operate in jurisdictions facing water scarcity issues must be carefully scrutinized by utility regulators and affected community stakeholders.

The Toxicity of Returned Wastewater

Data centers using water for cooling can produce substantial wastewater containing treatment chemicals (biocides, anti-corrosion agents), concentrated minerals (scale), and even heavy metals. 

Without appropriate management, discharged water can pollute local waterways or overburden sewage treatment plants. The data center must return water that is clean and safely managed to protect community water resources. Consequently, affected communities should require real-time monitoring of water quality to protect water resources. 

The data center industry has begun to pivot toward reducing water consumption through the use of recycled water, closed-loop and waterless cooling designs, efficient water management, and alternative cooling methods such as immersion cooling and direct-to-chip liquid cooling.

Carbon Footprint from Electricity Consumption

A basic text query requires the same amount of electricity as running a microwave for a few seconds. Images are about the same. Complex queries that require significant output may escalate to running a microwave for an hour. Rendering video equals running a microwave for hours upon hours. Multiply that by billions. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The gigawatt hours add up.

Currently, data center growth is centered in states with dirty, carbon-heavy grids: Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. This causes chaos in rural communities like Georgia, where tech companies buy huge tracts of land and then get multi-million dollar deals with Georgia Power to power the data centers with massive grid expansions of gas turbines, nuclear plants, battery storage, transmission lines and more (that Georgia residents pay for).

In Georgia, the situation is dire enough that groups are suing the PSC over irresponsibly allowing Georgia Power to build whatever it wants while protecting billions in profit. And the Georgia legislature has utterly failed to rein in data centers’ abuse to the state, infuriating residents everywhere.

Other Data Center Pollution Issues

• Noise Pollution
  Once a data center is running, constant noise comes from electric generators and backup diesel generators. In addition, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems generate a constant hum audible to neighboring residents and wildlife. Data centers generate noise levels that may exceed 90 decibels, as loud as standing next to a lawnmower. (Noise levels above 85 decibels are harmful to hearing.)
• Light Pollution
  Data centers generate light pollution. Hyperscale facilities, in particular, require all-night lighting that disrupts the natural (circadian) rhythms of the body, including melatonin production (the hormone that regulates sleep) and sleep-wake cycles. Light pollution also disturbs migration patterns and habitat development among birds, butterflies, bats, cats, and turtles, among others.
• Air Pollution
  Data centers, especially those powered by combined cycle gas generators, emit nitrogen oxides, methane, volatile organic compounds, and other pollutants. These pollutants increase rates of respiratory diseases and cardiovascular conditions, and elevate cancer risks among nearby communities. A recent study indicates that U.S. data centers in 2030 could cause approximately 600,000 asthma symptom cases and 1,300 premature deaths, exceeding 1/3 of asthma deaths in the U.S. each year, resulting in a public health burden of more than $20 billion.

The Economic Costs of Data Centers

The economic benefits and costs of data centers are a hotly debated issue. By almost any measure, data centers are a negative influence on the economics of the state.

First, tax incentives amount to millions in lost tax revenue to the state, pushing the burden of tax revenue back onto residents. Last year, Georgia gave away $474m in breaks for data centers that would have been built anyway.

According to a revised report from Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts, building data centers added about 8,500 temporary construction jobs. But only about 1,600 operator jobs — a few dozen people per data center site, or less than 10% of the workforce of a Walmart Supercenter.

The ultimate cost to residential and small commercial customers may exceed the tax revenue benefits because of higher electric bills. Georgia Power argued for a 10 gigawatt expansion including five new gas plants, new transmission lines, battery storage, and more. 80% of that expansion is earmarked for data centers. (10 gigawatts is a 50% increase over current capacity. The entire state of New Hampshire uses 5 gigawatts.) This comes at a cost of $16b upfront, but ultimately cost upwards of $60b over decades.

The 2025 all-Republican PSC granted this expansion despite tremendous pushback from industry experts and consumer advocates. Without any legislative protections, other Georgia Power customers will shoulder those costs. We will also shoulder the costs of new gas lines and hundreds of miles of high-voltage transmission lines.

Controlling Data Center Growth

Public Service Commission Actions

Data centers raise challenges for utilities (and their regulators) because of their unique power requirements — large loads at a continuous rate.

Many utilities have not faced this level of load growth in decades, if ever. The electricity forecasting and planning process is complicated by the fact that data centers can be built in two to three years while power generation and transmission expansion take multiples of that.

Traditional ratemaking principles require utility rates be just and reasonable, allocated based on cost causation (i.e., customers should pay for the costs they impose on the system). To honor these principles, we should push the PSC for tariffs or contract provisions for new large load data center customers. For example:

• Minimum Demand Charges: Data centers pay a percentage of their contracted capacity, even if actual usage is lower.
• Minimum Contract Duration: Lock in agreements as long as 15 years, including ramp-up periods as a data center comes online.
• Exit Fees: Data centers pay significant fees if they break the service contract.
• Collateral and Credit Requirements: Mitigating financial risks if a data center business fails.
• Bring Your Own Generation: Require data centers to “Bring Your Own Generation (BYOG)”, with an emphasis on clean generation tech.

Georgia Legislative Actions

During the 2025-2026 Georgia legislative session, several bills, none of which moved forward, were introduced to protect consumers.

Complementary bills were introduced in the House (1063) and Senate (34), which called for contracts between the data center and the utility provider to protect residential and retail customers from the costs of building gas and electricity infrastructure to operate data center.

Other bills looked to repeal sales and use tax exemptions for high-technology equipment used in data centers (SB 410) and required high-use facilities to provide disclosure regarding community impact and water and electricity use before entering into a contract for tax incentives or applying for a government permit (HB 528).

At the local level, ordinances and moratoriums can help cities grapple with the demands of data centers. Recently, Port Wentworth went through its own process of establishing the definition of a data center in order to scaffold the correct zoning requirements. This is good news for the many community members that raised their voices in concern.

The consumer needs both environmental and financial protection from the development and operation of large data centers.  We must approach our representatives before the 2027-2028 legislative session to express our concerns. One of the most common excuses from legislators is that they haven’t heard this from their constituents.