RALEIGH — Lawmakers introduced a bill in the North Carolina General Assembly on Wednesday, focused on addressing concerns about rapid data center development and energy affordability.
Senate Bill 730, which is called the Ratepayer Protection Act, was introduced in the House Energy and Public Utilities Committee on Wednesday. It’s one of five current bills in the statehouse proposing regulations on data centers, but the first to see movement in committee.
Here’s what’s in it:
Data Center regulations
The bill targets regulations related to zoning, water use, ownership, tax incentives, and utility contracts to protect local communities and ratepayers from bearing the cost of new large data center development. All the regulations are aimed at data center facilities with an electric demand of 100MW or more.
Some of the proposed rules include:
- Site assessments to examine the environmental impacts of new data centers
- Requirements that data centers use closed-loop cooling systems, or a cooling system that minimizes water consumption
- Utility contracts that require data centers to pay a minimum amount on their bill to cover the costs associated with providing them power.
The bill also prohibits local governments from providing any economic development incentives for attracting a data center, such as tax deals, and makes it impossible for data centers to condemn property through eminent domain.
It also includes a provision that would forbid certain foreign governments or citizens from countries, including China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, from owning data centers or the land on which they’re built.
Changes to energy policy
The bill also sets out a few provisions it claims will help slow rising energy costs.
It sets out guidelines for an independent study into whether and to what extent data center development and the state’s climate goal, to have its electric generation carbon neutral by 2050, are contributing to rising energy costs.
It would require the Department of Environmental Quality to develop a program to review and certify permits for energy projects more quickly.
It would prevent the North Carolina Utilities Commission from authorizing any coal plant retirements until new nuclear development in the state passes a certain regulatory threshold.
The next scheduled retirements are the Marshall and Roxboro coal facilities in 2028. These would be partial facility retirements of one or two coal-burning units, replaced by new gas generation, which has already been permitted.
The bill also includes a provision forbidding any member of the N.C. Utilities Commission or Public Staff from working with a regulated utility within six months of leaving their previous employer.
Rep. Dean Arp (R-Union) and Rep. Matthew Winslow (R-Franklin) are the sponsors. They expect the bill to go through some more technical changes before it’s ready to move forward.