The North Carolina Legislative Building (Photo by Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)
North Carolina House lawmakers are moving quickly to pass a bill placing restrictions and regulations on data centers, mandating more nuclear power, and speeding up the permitting process for new plants.
Reps. Matthew Winslow (R-Franklin) and Dean Arp (R-Union) unveiled the rewritten Senate Bill 730, now titled the “Ratepayer Protection Act,” at the end of last month, shortly before the legislature took their Memorial Day break.
With the General Assembly back in session, lawmakers are fast-tracking the measure to send it back to their Senate colleagues. The bill passed two House committees Tuesday and could be on the House floor later Tuesday.
“North Carolinians are seeing higher electricity bills, driven by rapid data growth and aggressive energy mandates,” Winslow told the House Commerce committee Tuesday morning. “[This bill] puts our families and small businesses first by making data centers pay their fair share in strength and grid reliability.”
S730 establishes rules for large data center development, like requiring large facilities to conduct noise studies, and allowing local governments to assess impacts on water, air quality, agricultural resources and thermal plumes before approval.
Data centers would also be mandated by law to implement closed-loop water systems, which reuse water to cool machinery, instead of allowing the water to evaporate.
Under the legislation, existing baseload power plants could not be retired until they can be replaced with nuclear resources, so there is enough baseload energy available in the grid.
Rep. Brandon Lofton (D-Mecklenburg) questioned why the bill specifies nuclear power.
“Why specify or restrict the commission to say you have to wait for construction of nuclear facilities, when my understanding is that could take a number of years, as opposed to employing the commission with the flexibility to achieve a least-cost pathway?” Lofton asked?
Winslow said the focus is on replacement of baseload generation, not the form of energy. He said renewable energy sources like solar and wind are not considered baseload power because they’re limited by natural factors and therefore less reliable than coal, natural gas or nuclear power.
NC House panel advances data center restrictions
“The last thing we want is another Christmas Eve brownout, you know, shutdown,” Arp said, referring to the rolling power outages that affected much of the state on Dec. 25, 2022, when the Southeast’s power grid was overtaxed by severely cold weather. “No family is going to get rid of their family car before they have the ability to go get another car, or else they’re going to be walking.”
Public commenters on different sides of the debate told the committee the bill is a good start, but needs fine-tuning.
Kathy Martin with Democracy Out Loud objected to the requirement for new nuclear resources to replace other baseload facilities. She also said she’s opposed to characterizing nuclear power as clean energy.
“I don’t think it’s the legislature’s job to dictate power sources — that belongs to other experts in energy,” she said. “The actual mix of energy sources will continue to change as the technology develops, and we should be fully able to take advantage of any new technology that comes along to give us the best mix of energy sources available.”
Kara Bunder is director of state policy at the Data Center Coalition, which represents companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft that rely on data centers. She told the committee the measure needs more work.
“We have concerns about three provisions: mandates on specific cooling technologies, prescriptive requirements for utility service contracts that are already under review by the North Carolina Utilities Commission, and restrictions on economic development tools that could reduce North Carolina’s competitiveness,” she said.
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