The Data Center Gold Rush Is Overwhelming Southeast Communities

Data centers are being built across the Southeast at a pace that could affect your power bill, even if none is planned near you. The Southeast Climate and Energy Alliance (SACE) is calling for an 18-month pause on new large data centers in Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, arguing that utilities are locking in decades of new gas-fired power plants to serve this demand — costs that typically get spread across all ratepayers, not just the data center operators.

The numbers are large: TVA's industrial power use tied to data centers has grown from 1% to 19% since 2019, backed by about $50 billion in new power plants. Georgia Power wants approval for 10,000 megawatts of new capacity, largely for data centers, including a newly approved 3.2-gigawatt facility near Savannah for OpenAI. Duke Energy says data centers will drive over 85% of its future load growth, justifying 9.7 gigawatts of new gas plants across the Carolinas. Florida passed a law this year requiring data centers to pay for their own power, but decisions there are still moving faster than communities can weigh in.

More than 70 counties, cities, and towns across these five states have already paused or are moving to pause new data center projects, often over concerns about electricity costs, water use, and lack of public input in approval decisions. If you live in one of these states, this buildout is part of why your utility may be planning new gas plants and rate changes in the coming years — worth watching if you're weighing upgrades tied to your own energy costs.