A new state law regulating large-scale data centers took effect Wednesday, part of a wave of Florida legislation that became active on July 1.
Senate Bill 484, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May, is designed to protect residential and small-business electricity customers from having to foot the bill for power-hungry facilities. The law bars utilities from shifting costs associated with serving large-scale data centers onto other ratepayers.
Under the legislation, a “large-scale data center” is defined as a single site with an anticipated peak power load of 50 megawatts or more.
The law also gives local governments more authority over data center development, allowing counties and cities to impose stricter standards than the state requires or to deny proposed projects outright.
Additional provisions include:
- A requirement that data center development deals be publicly disclosed
- A prohibition on data centers being owned or controlled by “foreign countries of concern”
- A new state permitting process establishes environmental and infrastructure standards for large facilities
The law arrives as Florida communities remain split over the rapid growth of data centers, which are needed to power cloud computing and artificial intelligence but require significant amounts of land, water, and electricity.
Lake County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini has raised concerns about the toll that data center construction takes on rural land and water resources. Lake County passed a moratorium on new data centers last week, with Sabatini arguing the facilities offer little long-term economic benefit.
“There’s no actual permanent economic gain for this county, so it’s like a sugar high economic project where you get a few temporary construction jobs, but you have a permanent drain on resources and the erasure of rural lands,” Sabatini said.
Not all Florida communities are taking the same approach. Orlando is moving forward with a large data center hub along Interstate 4. HostDime, the company developing the facility, expects it to be operational next month.
Follow the St. Pete-Clearwater Sun on Facebook, Google, & X
St. Pete-Clearwater Sun: local St. Pete-Clearwater news at PIE-Sun.com
Leave a Reply