Data Centers 2026 09 23

Thanks for taking the time to be here, whether you're in person or virtually. While this is not a committee of the whole meeting, the committee of the whole overseas and explores topics the council is interested in, such as how best to address emerging industries like data centers within our zoning code regulations. As many of you already know, this series was requested by the council as part of our zoning code rewrite project. The last comprehensive update to our zoning code occurred in 1996 and our world has changed so much since then. Our zoning code needs to evolve accordingly. Zoning is one of the fundamental guard rails that supports responsible development before considering No, I forgot where it was at. Um, basically what it comes down to, our goal tonight and for the entire series is learning to inform later meetings where we develop strong informed policy. While this is not a public input session, public input sessions will be advertised as this project goes on. Following this series, the council will convene as the committee of the whole to discuss issues identified throughout these sessions and to develop a plan to address those issues within the zoning code. Before we begin, I'd like to quickly review a few ground rules for tonight's session. If you have a question, please write it on a note card and place it in the collection area near the older persons. If you need assistance getting your card there, simply raise your hand and vol and a volunteer will help. Questions will be grouped by topics so we can cover as much ground as possible. Your questions may be combined with others that are similar. For everyone's comfort and safety, please keep aisles clear throughout the event. If you brought a sign, ple we kindly ask that you avoid displaying it in the seated area so everyone has an unobstructed view. Please listen care please listen fully to each speaker and allow them to share their information without interruption. Our speakers are generously volunteering their time. If the environment becomes disruptive or unsafe, they may pause or conclude their participation. Thank you for helping us maintain a respectful and welcoming atmosphere. Now that we got all that out of the way, the legal makes us do all that. I'm excited to introduce tonight's speaker, Bridget Williams. Bridget Williams is a se is a senior policy coordinator at the Great Plains Institute. Through this role, Bridget facilitates the MISO cities and communities coalition, a network of local governments that track regional and federal energy issues, engage grid decision makers, and identify opportunities to strengthen local energy policies. Through this project and an initiative for Great Lakes communities, Bridget conducts research, develops educational materials and provides technical assistance to local governments on data center impacts and opportunities to align data center development with local support for local governments outlining their opport to data center participations on data center impacts to local government and other stakeholders section of the American works conference among others. Bridget has a bachelor of science community. Let us welcome Bridget please. test. >> Be smarter than the technology. >> Hi everyone. Thank you for coming today. Um I'm going to have to shorten my bio for you. That was too much for you to have to uh say out loud. Um but yeah, so my name is Bridget Williams. I have been working on data center issues for over a year now with local governments uh primarily that have sustainability goals but um really with all local governments that have a variety of energy objectives. Uh I work for the Great Plains Institute. We are a nonpartisan nonprofit organization focused on accelerating net zerocarbon emissions for the economy, the people, the environment. Um our work uh focuses on facilitate facilitating coalitions and stakeholder groups, providing technical assistance, conducting research, developing plans, programs, and toolkits to support local governments, state agencies, uh tribal governments, etc. My work uh has been with local governments in the Great Lakes and in the Midwest regions on data center issues. Uh and my objective has really been to help local governments understand data center impacts and their levers to align development with local goals. So my objective is not to tell a local government one way or another uh how they should view data center development but just to try to provide some neutral fact-based information about what types of impacts data center development can have for a community and what local government's authorities are to regulate data centers. opportunities to uh get benefits from those developments etc. So I know that I'm the third uh in this educational series so I won't spend too much time on what are data centers. Um you all probably know by now these are buildings that house servers and computing equipment associated with digital data storage and operations. There are many different types of data centers but I really focus on three. uh enterprise data centers which can be small to midsize. These are owned and operated by a single organization for internal use. Um colllocation facilities. These can be anywhere from small to largesiz facilities. These are owned and operated by one company but they lease space to multiple customers or tenants like a data center apartment. And then lastly our hypers scale facilities. These are large-scale facilities dedicated to artificial intelligence and cloud computing. I am going to focus on these largecale facilities. I do want to call out that there are many operating small to midsize data centers in the state of Wisconsin already. Uh for example, there's Fox Communities Credit Union in Appleton, Wisconsin appears to have a data center in it. So you may have driven by a data center and not even known it. Those are your smaller to midsize facilities versus what you see in the news today. So comm uh large-scale data centers are increasingly proposed due to growth in cloud computing and artificial intelligence. I like to show this graph that uh is admittedly very uh challenging to understand. It's uh from a report that is really on grid impacts of data center development. But I do think it paints a nice picture of how data center development has been evolving. Uh we used to see these enterprise smaller to medium-sized facilities really uh being the bulk of data center development but increasingly we're seeing largecale collocation and hypers scale facilities become more and more a part of the uh network and expect to see those really dominate the uh data center fleet across the country. Um what when I talk about large-scale data center facilities, what am I talking about? There really is not a standard definition. Um but the criteria that I use is at least 20 megawws in uh and or at least 20 megawatts in electric capacity. Um because at 20 megawws, that's when facilities can start to trigger a need for larger grid upgrades. And then when you get even larger than that, like 150 megawws, that's when you're really going to start to see a need for large-scale transmission infrastructure. Um, and then I'm also using a threshold of 10,000 square ft just because this is what the independent development corporation, which is a leading industry uh company uses as their minimum threshold for hyperscale facilities. But as we're seeing facilities are far exceeding these thresholds. Uh we are seeing facilities exceeding 1 gawatt of electricity use. This is equivalent to the annual consumption of a million average households. Um and we are also seeing facilities exceeding 1,000 acres in size. Uh the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was uh estimating these in Walmart super centers which are on average 200,000 square feet. So a thousand acres is roughly equivalent to 245 average Walmart super centers which can be really mind-boggling to uh picture. Um an example of this is the Port Washington data center that was recently approved. While they are only currently developing a small portion of this at full development, the expectation is that facility will be 1,644 acres um and use an estimated of 3.5 gawatts of electricity. And I should say just because the facility is capable of using 3.5 gawatts of electricity doesn't mean that it will. It just means that that's its maximum capacity. Um to put this another way, this is almost three times the capacity of the Point Beach nuclear plant here in Wisconsin. So these facilities can be quite large, but they do vary. Not all facilities are a thousand acres or one gigawatt. So, I do like to show this map because it can feel like there's a lot of data center development in the state of Wisconsin. Actually, compared to our neighbors, Wisconsin is not seeing the same type of proposals that uh Illinois or Iowa are. Uh Virginia, Texas, California, these have really been the biggest hosts of data center development. Virginia hosts the most amount of data centers in the world. uh and you uh can expect to continue to see uh those states hosting a lot of data center development and with some growth in Iowa, Illinois as I mentioned and some other states across the country. Uh that does not mean that Wisconsin is not seeing proposals as we all know this does not mean that local governments should not update their policies accordingly. But I do like to just put this in context. Um this map is a little bit old but the numbers still hold up. A lot of the research is still showing data center development in a lot of these same states. Um a lot of time actually before I go here a lot of times uh people ask me what brings data center development to certain states over others. There are a lot of different factors that drive data center development. Uh number one is access to electric infrastructure. So is there existing transmission infrastructure? Are there existing power plants? um or are there planned energy infrastructure in the area? Uh energy costs is a big part of the conversation. Tax incentives, honestly, most states across the country have some kind of tax incentive for data center development. So, I'm really not sure that that is the key driver anymore of where data center development locates. Um, you also have the uh colder climates that can attract data center development because the colder the climate, the less the data center may need to use electricity or water to cool its facilities, they can uh potentially rely on the surrounding climate to cool their facilities. Electric utility relationships. So, if a data center develops in one utility territory, uh, for example, we saw QTS, this is a collocation facility developer. Um they had a project that was approved in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That's where I'm from originally. The utility there is Alliant Energy. Few years later, maybe a year later, QTS proposed a facility in Alliant territory here in Wisconsin. So developers do develop relationships with utilities and you might see them pop up in other uh utility territories that they own. So there's lots of different factors that drive where data centers go. Trends in Wisconsin. Um we have about 53 estimated operating facilities in the state. Um some recently approved or op and those estimating operating facilities those are smallcale mediumcale not a lot of largecale development yet. Um but we do have some recently approved or operating large-scale projects. Meta in Beaverdam Vantage OpenAI Oracle facility in Port Washington Microsoft in Mount Pleasant. There have also been several stalled or suspended projects. Um that QTS facility that I mentioned in the village of deforest, a Microsoft facility in Calonia. Um and there are currently at least 22 active local data center moratoriums in the state. Uh so we are seeing a lot of opposition to this development. Um, and a lot of communities are putting a 12 to 18month pause on this development so they can really assess the impacts and really get their zoning ordinance in order before they review more proposals. So, what are the potential impacts of data center development? Both uh potentially positive and both potentially negative. There are lots of impacts that local governments are interested in when it comes to data center facilities. their electricity use, water use and quality, air quality. So if data centers are using backup generators on site, what are the impacts to local air quality? Heat impacts. Data centers do produce a lot of uh excess heat. The research out there is honestly kind of anecdotal on this, so I'm I can't answer too many questions about heat, but people are starting to look more at that issue. um impacts to land use. If you data center developments tend to cluster uh so if you see a data center facility pop up in a community, you might see more and more and how will that impact say if it's an agricultural area or a residential area, how might that impact the land use of the surrounding area? Noise is a big concern. Um fire and safety is something that communities are interested in. I wouldn't say more so than say your battery storage facilities or some other um largecale industrial uses. Um economic benefits communities are interested in what kind of tax benefits can I get from these facilities? Um what kind of local investment can I get from these facilities? Virginia has received a lot of tax revenue from data center developments. Uh workforce development, what are the opportunities for construction jobs for long-term jobs? uh lighting and traffic. This these facilities are built quickly um which can create significant construction impacts. So if you're having say a thousand construction workers on a site um if you ever have I haven't driven by Port Washington at night but I know that the Microsoft facility in Racine County I mean if you drive at night the lights are pretty insane because they are building that facility 24/7. Electronic waste. So what happens to that mach machinery and equipment that they replace in the facility if the facility um is no longer operating? How do they decommission that facility? Um which gets into my last bullet point here too, stranded assets? Um and lastly, consumer rates. So if these data center developments are going to be using a lot of electricity or a lot of water, how does that impact residents and other consumers uh electric and water rates? I am going to focus on electricity use and a little bit on water use and quality because that's just more where my focus and expertise lies. But if people do have questions about these other impacts, feel free. I might disappoint you, but I do talk with a lot of researchers that deal in all kinds of different impacts. And I might have an example. So electricity data centers are expected to consume as high as 580 terowatts of US electricity in 2028. What does that mean, you ask? Well, this is equivalent to about half of today's US industrial electricity use in 2025. And this is coming after decades of relatively flat power demand. We've seen a lot of gains in energy efficiency in this country. We've seen a loss of our manufacturing base in this country. So, we have not seen electricity increases in decades. And we are just starting to see the potential for that. Another thing that I didn't put up here, but that I think can be helpful for local governments as they're really trying to figure out, okay, but what is the difference between say a data center in an industrial use? some of our historically large energy users like aluminum smelters, paper mills, steel mills. Um, to use one of those examples, an aluminum smelter, which we really don't have very many of those left in this country, but they are estimated to use about 200 to 800 megawatts of electricity versus you start to see these data center facilities that are using a,000 megawatts or a gigawatt of electricity. So these can really surpass what have traditionally been our highest electricity uses. And those historical large electricity uses, they were developed slowly over time, geographically dispersed with data center development. You can often see them cluster and you can see them phase up very quickly. So it's just it's just a different type of facility in terms of um how quickly you're seeing the electricity use increase and how much electricity it is using. Um I like to show this um time to market for various type of grid projects to give you a sense of the gap here. So an average new data center can take 2 to 3 years uh to build versus the associated transmission infrastructure, wind turbines, those can take an average of 10 years to build. Um and data centers really want to get these data center developers really want to get these facilities up and running very quickly. So there's a gap here. Um and developers are very interested in how do we close this gap? How do we build generation resources as quickly as possible to power these facilities? Um, and as you can see, some of these other types of generation resources, solar, for example, can take an average of 5 years to build. Gas plants can take about an average of five years to build. But there's still a gap between the time it can take to build data centers and the time it can take to build these generation resources. So, why is this a challenge for communities? A lot of the local government governments that I work with have energy or sustainability objectives um and they did not account for data center development. They have been implementing programs to improve energy efficiency across their community. Um and so seeing these potential large increases in electricity is a challenge to their plans. Electricity use may also pose the following conflicts. Number one is fossil fuel deployment. Electric utilities are delaying gas and coal retirements uh in order to uh get data centers up and running very quickly and investing in new generation that can be built quickly to power facilities. Now I mentioned that natural gas and solar can both take an average of 5 years to build but solar alone is less viable to support 247 data center operations um without that battery and storage component. Um in addition, data center developers or data centers often rely on backup generators. Uh these are often uh diesel power generators or gas power generators to meet 247 power needs. So if their electric grid uh goes out for some reason, that data center wants to keep running those 247 operations and they may rely on backup generators to meet it. Another issue is water use. So you hear a lot about the on-site water use of data centers uh for their cooling needs, but actually the associated power generation, your gas plants, your nuclear facilities, these generation resources that use water. This is really where a lot of the water use associated with data centers are coming from. Um approximately 75% of data wa data centers water usage in the US is coming from the off-site power generation. And really, you're not seeing data centers propose um really water inensive on-site cooling anymore because it has become such a big issue. You're seeing a lot more closed loop um type cooling, which I'll get into a little bit uh as we go. But uh really communities need to be thinking about both the on-site and the off-site water usage of these data center developments. Lastly, of course, is consumer rates. So, data centers may require significant electric grid upgrades, which could impact consumer rates without careful planning. There are a lot of very smart people working on this issue, and I'm really not a rate expert. Um, but basically, data centers are a part of our shared electric grid. Um, and so you can't really just look at this facility in a vacuum. It's not just, okay, this data center development is going to use this much electricity. They need this much uh generation right now. Do we have the capacity to meet it? Great. I mean, we need to be really long-term planning if we are going to have this much data center uh electric capacity on the grid in 10 years, 20 years. How much transmission infrastructure, those big power lines are required for these facilities? How much generation is required for these facilities? And how can those things potentially creep into consumer rates? um we need really careful planning at the state level, the regional level to ensure that uh that's not happening. So water, uh as I mentioned, data centers use water for two purposes, on-site cooling and off-site power generation. Um how much water a data center uses for on-site cooling depends on a variety of factors. I know people often want to know, well, how much water does a hyperskll facility use? But it's very dependent on the facility. Um, what type of cooling method are they using? Are they using evaporative cooling which is more water intensive or air cooling which requires minimal to no on-site water? What is the size of the facility? What is the efficiency of the cooling method? Um, what is the climate and season of the surrounding area? So, I had mentioned that data centers can use the climate of the surrounding area to help cool their facilities. Um, in West De Moine, Iowa, they have a few data centers and they took a look at how much water the facility was using during different times of the year and in the cooler months of the year, they really were not using very much water. It was really only in the summertime that that water use was increasing. Um, and then off-site power generation, which I already touched on. Um, however, let me back up for a second here. So, with the on-site cooling, you often will hear a lot of different stories with how much water data centers are using on-site. Some community- based organizations will set talk about how they use 50 gallons, upwards of 50 gallons of water a year. Um, how they're really the largest water users across the country. Um, while you might also hear developers say, "Well, really, we're using the same amount of water as a golf course or a hotel." Um, honestly, the largest water users in this country are irrigation and power generation. That eats up about 80% of our country's water usage. Um, so data centers may be using a good amount of on-site water, but it is true that it is compared to hotels and hospitals and car washes. Um, and so while that may be the case, it's still important for communities to consider the on-site water usage of of a facility to ensure that it's not impacting their local water footprint. So, if you have a particularly stressed local water footprint, even a facility that's using the amount of water as say a hotel is still could still potentially be significant for your community. Um uh there were some researchers that looked at where data centers were located and they found that oneif of data center servers on-site water consumption comes from moderately to highly stressed waterheds and nearly half uh are partially or fully powered by power plants located within water stressed regions. So it's really important that communities consider their particular context and also consider what is the on-site and off-site water use associated with this facility. Um, lastly, wastewater impacts. There's really not great comprehensive research out there, but I know that people are interested in this issue. Anecdotally, this is what uh we've seen. Number one is there was an Amazon facility in Oregon. They had a settlement uh on nitrate pollutions. And what was really happening there were there were existing pollutants in the public water supply that were being concentrated through the data cent's evaporative cooling process. So it wasn't that the data center was adding new pollutants to the water system. It's that through this process of evaporative cooling, they were concentrating all of these existing nitrates that were in this agricultural area and uh dispersing that back into the water system. Um the second potential wastewater impact is if coolants or additives are used for closed loop or other cooling processes. So closed loop cooling again I'm not a water expert but essentially a closed loop cooling system is where a facility will use a certain amount of water and that they use it once and it keeps getting recycled throughout the facility. Um, but they do need to use a uh like a flushing process before they do that. Um, and so if they are using certain types of coolants or additives uh in their process, this could potentially get dispersed out into the water system through that initial flushing process. Um and so there was an example of this where a meta facility in Cheyenne, Wyoming, um the board of utilities, which is the water utility there, they had taken a look at all of the additives that Meta was proposing to use in the facility. Uh they had looked at the flushing system that was being proposed and they said everything looks good. and yet um they ended up having to issue a notice of significant non-compliance to META after finding a bacteria at their wastewater treatment plant. Um and so this is important because there are things we don't know about how data centers operate. So even though the utility really went through the right formal process to ensure that they did a thorough review of uh the company's wastewater plan, there was still a non-compliance event. Um and this required labor and expense to identify the bacteria and source and treat it. Um and there is now a uh court case as well. So that also requires significant expense. What role do local governments play in shaping data center development? Um there are four key ones that I like to talk about. First is planning and zoning. So uh communities can include data center development objectives in their community plans and establish zoning requirements. They can enter into or encourage community benefit agreements to in to secure investments and mitigate impacts. Uh they can use impact studies. So they can assess development impacts via a study conducted by a third party to evaluate the project and determine appropriate appropriate impact fees or project modifications. Um there are several examples of these where the data center developer pays for that impact study. Um we're seeing it getting required in zoning ordinances as well as being a part of a community benefit agreement. Um and then lastly external coordination. So there are some things that it's just not the local government's jurisdiction to regulate in the zoning ordinance. And so this is the opportunity for local governments to engage their utilities and grid decision makers to promote innovative solutions, proactive planning, rate protections. Um, and it's also important that local governments coordinate with their neighbors because these facilities have impacts beyond just a certain community's boundaries. So I'm going to talk about zoning. Um, but if people have questions about some of those other levers, I'm happy to get into it. Um, so before I get into this, actually, I'm going to focus on two community examples, Lynn County, Iowa and St. Louis, Missouri. That is not because there are not other examples across the country, but because I think these two communities have very comprehensive zoning ordinances surrounding data centers. And so I just think for simplicity, it makes sense to talk about what each community did. Um but there are other examples of some of these components. So generally a data center zoning ordinance can establish clear land use standards while still requiring discretionary review. So what I mean by that is that um it's important that local governments set clear requirements for a data center specifically. However, it's also important because these can be controversial or impactful facilities to have that public process. So setting those rules but also requiring some kind of conditional use permit or um some type of public process so that the community is really involved in that decision. What Link County, Iowa did is they established an exclusionary zone for large-scale data centers, meaning that any developer that comes into that community that wants to build a data center, they have to go through a reszoning process. Um and so that uh triggers community meetings. Uh St. Louis, Missouri passed a data center ordinance, but they require a conditional use permit. Communities can also define data center by size and/or electricity use. Uh as I mentioned at the start, small-cale facilities are very different from large-scale facilities, and it may not be appropriate to hold those two types of facilities by the same standards. Um, in Lind County, Iowa, they define small-cale facilities as smaller than 20 megawws or that use less than 50 gallons per minute of water annually and large scale facilities is over 20 megawws or using more than 50 gallons per minute of water annually. So, with data centers, it's always a balance between water use and energy use. It's possible that a facility by choosing a more uh efficient on-site water uh cooling mechanism that they're actually increasing their energy usage which may actually be increasing their uh larger water footprint um and vice versa. So there is no perfect data center design where they use no water and no electricity. It's always a balance to meet those cooling needs. Um, and Lind County knew that and that's why they use this definition of either we know you're using a lot of energy or we know that you're using a lot of water. Um, so we're using both criteria. St. Louis, Missouri, they created three different categories for data centers. A micro facility less than five megawws, standard 5 to 30 megawatts, and major over 30 megawws. Um, in general, communities can also require or encourage community benefit agreements. Lynn County and St. Lewis both did this. Uh, and they use different terms for it, but they do the same thing. Uh, you can require or encourage impact studies and regular monitoring of impacts if that facility is built. Um, in Lyn County, Iowa, they require a water study to assess the impacts of a facility on their local watershed. Uh and they also require a water use agreement where the facility uh commits to regularly monitoring those impacts, working with the local water utility to figure out the right reporting frequency, etc. St. Louis, Missouri requires environmental and economic impact reports prepared by a third party um and requires annual reports on noise, heat impacts, and renewable energy use. on electricity specifically. Communities can also encourage or require energy efficiency. St. Louis, Missouri is a very progressive uh ordinance and this ordinance is not going to work for all states. But I just like to explain kind of the different levels that a a zoning ordinance could incorporate. So St. Louis, Missouri requires lead certification as practicable. This is a leading rating system for green building design and construction. Um, and there are several existing leadcertified data centers across the country. Even if a community does not make this requirement, it can still be helpful for a community to look through that database and find the really good examples of data center design so that when a developer comes and they say, "We're going to use this much electricity or we're going to be this size, but we can't implement these energy efficiency measures." The community can say, "Well, but we have some of these other examples in the Midwest. What is different about your facility than our facility? Um, communities can also require or I'm sorry, St. Louis requires green roof, cool roof, andor rooftop solar. Uh, they require a power usage effectiveness of 1.35 or better. What this means is data centers use this metric called power usage effectiveness uh to measure energy efficiency. What it means is how much of our energy is being put towards the IT equipment versus what's being wasted on cooling um or other other uh parts of operation. And so uh technically a power usage effectiveness of 1.0 would be the best possible. That means all the electricity is going just to that IT infrastructure and none is being wasted on cooling or other uh operations. Um, as an example of this, Google reports a fleetwide power usage effectiveness of 1.09, um, which is pretty good, uh, compared to some of the other developers. Um, and then communities can encourage or require clean energy use. So, Lynn County does this just by simply allowing on-site renewables and storage as an accessory use. You don't want to ask the facility, hey, are you considering uh using on-site renewables? but you don't actually allow in your zoning code for them to do so. Uh and St. Louis, Missouri, they have again a very ambitious requirement which is to require phase renewable energy use through either on-site renewables and storage, renewable energy credits and or utility programs. So essentially within 10 years time that facility that gets built in St. Louis has to be 100% renewable energy powered. that is quite ambitious and that does not work for all communities due to state context which I'll get into a little bit but these are just some of the examples of what communities are doing uh to try to shape data center development. Um oh okay last few things here establishing backup generator requirements and limiting their use. So, um requiring backup gener gen generators to meet EPA tier 4 emissions or equivalent standards. Um and asking about or limiting when backup generators will be used. So, ensuring that data centers are really only using those backup generators in emergency situations and not say to power their facilities as they wait for uh approvals on generation resources that they need to power their facilities. Um, and then for if you're going to require community benefit agreements, here are just some examples of what could be in those community benefit agreements on energy. Um, data centers can offset offset electricity use through home energy upgrade investment. So, a data center could say, "Okay, we're going to invest in residents in this area to adopt rooftop solar or to um implement energy efficiency upgrades." And this was something that actually a New Jersey law um just opened up allowing data centers to pay for home energy upgrades. Um they can establish a clean energy fund. The city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania has a community benefits agreement where they establish this this kind of fund uh to uh target investment in their community for clean energy. Um how am I doing on time? Okay. So, since I did not get into water with the zoning, I did want to just give an example of the types of questions that a local government could ask a developer to get a sense of how sustainable the water usage is for that facility. Um, so communities can ask what is the projected on-site and off-site water usage of the facility? What is the water usage effectiveness and water usage impact of the facility? And this gets at the same thing that I was talking about with power usage effectiveness. So, how much water how efficient is your system for cooling your facility if you're using on-site water? Uh, is the developer willing to fund an impact study to assess watershed impacts? Are there any water conservation measures planned? Is the cooling system designed to utilize the community surrounding climate? You really want to make sure that if uh say Meta is proposing a facility here in Wisconsin, they're not using the exact same cooling system that they're using in Arizona. Um because very different climates and they may be able to really leverage the climate here. Um what is the water source for the development? Will any private on-site wells be built as part of the project? How will the developer coordinate with the local water utility to mitigate impacts? Will the developer use uh chemicals or additives for cooling and will those be discharged? Is there a risk of discharging a concentration of existing public water contaminants? Um yeah. Uh considerations when communities are updating their zoning rules or are considering what they're going to ask in development review. Number one is alignment with state policy. State law shapes local government's authorities. It states what local government's taxing authorities are. It shapes um uh states may have preeemptions on local government authority that may uh really impact what they can put in their zoning ordinance depending on what the state uh permitting authorities are. So what's the DNR's role? Um what is economic development's role? uh that can really impact what the local government can do so that they're not conflicting with uh air quality permits that uh the developer is already already going to have to get at the state level. An example of this is here in Wisconsin, local governments cannot set stricter building codes than the state. And this can make it very challenging for local governments to do anything may be viewed as trying to set more strict energy uh requirements than the state. And so some of those things that I had uh provided, examples that St. Louis has in their zoning ordinance. Some of those things are just not going to be feasible for communities here in Wisconsin because there's just different authorities here. Um, a second consideration is really ensuring that there's a clear legal basis for local decisionmaking. So, data center requirements should align with the local comprehensive plan or other local plans. Um, data centers should not be unfairly regulated than other industrial or warehouse uses. So, I've started to see some examples in proposed zoning ordinances where it seems the community is holding data center developers to a different standard than other land uses and that's uh going to cause legal challenges. Um, and then lastly, ensuring that the permit denials clearly tie back to the ordinance or local authorities. So an example of this is uh in Saline Township, Michigan. Uh Saline Township board uh rejected a proposal for reszoning for a data center development. The developer sued the township uh and that resulted in a settlement where now the facility will be built in the community. The community got significant community benefits as a part of that settlement. But it's very important that local governments are not just rejecting proposals um with no reason. They really have to be able to show go back to their zoning ordinance or go back to their plan on why the permit was denied. Lastly is jurisdictional boundaries. Um a lot of community members are very concerned about electric rates and electric infrastructure. This gets into a jurisdictional issue. Local governments do not regulate electric rates. They do not regulate energy infrastructure in a lot of uh ways. So, it's unclear whether local governments can really deny a permit based on concerns about energy infrastructure and cost. Um, but it's it's unclear. I mean, communities have been asking in development reviews before if a project is going to affect consumer rates. it just if that's the only reason that could potentially cause challenges because it's not necessarily the local government's jurisdiction. Continuing challenges, access to information. Um data center developers may use non-disclosure agreements. Uh third party companies uh may be used to prospect sites so the actual developer is obscured. Um energy use or water use or some of these other things that communities may be interested in. the developer may say this is trade secret. Another challenge is lawsuits. So, I had mentioned the Saline Township example. I've been talking a lot about St. Louis's uh data center ordinance. There's a data center developer that recently sued the city over their renewable energy requirement. Um so, we'll see how that plays out. Land annexations are a challenge. So, if a data center developer doesn't like the policies of a community, are they just going to hop over to the neighboring jurisdiction and try to annex that land into that jurisdiction? This is what happened in Lynn County, Iowa. Um, Google uh decided to propose to annex their project into the city of PO. Actually, this kind of played out in an interesting way because the residents of PO were still very uh concerned about that project and the city of PO ended up passing very similar requirements to what Lynn County had uh passed and now Lynn County has a moratorium on data center development and it's up in the air what's going to happen with the proposal. So, you know, on the one hand, somebody could look at the developer deciding to annex the land and say, well, if Lynn County hadn't set such strict uh regulations, then maybe we could have got some community benefits here. But also, Lynn County really set the stage and the imprecented for what a community could do and pay followed suit. Lastly is technical expertise. So it takes significant expertise and careful evaluation to determine what are the potential benefits, what are the potential negative impacts of this facility. As an example, if a community is looking at expected revenue from a data center development, they also have to weigh that against potential infrastructure costs, revenue loss if the planned development is scaled back or machinery and equipment is not replaced as planned. Uh, and the reason that I say that is because in Virginia, the way that a lot of those communities have gotten a lot of tax benefits is by taxing the machinery and equipment that these developers are replacing almost every 5 years. And so it's very important that uh say that developers start to be able to create more efficient data centers. Okay. Well, if the community was really banking on that future revenue, they that may be a challenge. So, it's just it requires a lot of expertise to really look at the long-term economic benefits against potential losses. Oh. Oh, I skipped our some solutions. I'm so sorry. We'll have to go no slide here. But I just wanted to say that on some of those continuing challenges on use of non-disclosure agreements and um on the technical expertise questions and on the lawsuit questions, there are a few potential uh opportunities. Number one is community should really track industry and policy trends. Um for example, Microsoft is no longer using non-disclosure agreements. Um secondly, uh thank you. Secondly, a Dayne County judge just ruled that energy use is not a trade secret after a public service commission denied records request uh on the meta facility in Beaver Dam. So, these are important things to follow because then it's easier when a developer comes to town to say, well, this really big company is not using non-disclosure agreements or this judge recently said this isn't a trade secret. Establishing some standard practices. So, in Detroit, Michigan, they have a community benefit ordinance that applies to uh all high-value projects um that says that projects that are going to create a certain amount of value for the community, the developer has to involve impact area residents and those residents form an advisory committee and they are part of the negotiation process. And that is really important because it exists not just for potential data centers, but all kinds of large-scale projects. And there's a really clear procedure there. Uh Big Rapids Township, Michigan, they recently passed a non-disclosure agreement policy prohibiting elected officials and staff from signing NDAs for developments of public interest. Um and then lastly, communities can coordinate with neighboring jurisdictions to try to avoid that land annexation issue so that communities are really working together. Uh an example of this is in Dayne County. They uh put together an advisory committee that includes staff and officials at the county level and within their uh towns and villages within their jurisdiction uh and members of the public so that they can really work to establish shared understanding of data center impacts. So it's basically a meeting like this much smaller but a meeting like this amongst several neighboring jurisdictions so that they can hopefully agree on some uh shared impacts and what they want to do going forward. And that's all. >> Thank you very much. We appreciate your presentation, all the information you shared. We're gonna take just a minute to collect questions. If you guys want to bring questions forward that you have written down and then we are going to start to ask those questions. Just a second. Get started here. Okay, we're going to start with um a couple of infrastructure related questions. Um and obviously these don't fall within your scope of feel free to just let us know that we ask. Do any other states regional advisory boards to help local communities entities sorry to help local entities with advice but not local it's a good idea um I can't think of an example there are definitely this is not quite answering your question but there are definitely states that have done a more I don't want to say better job, but I'll just say it. They they've done a better job of being very clear about what their state authorities are around data center development. So Minnesota, for example, has put together this Minnesota business first stop uh thing where they talk about these are all the different state agencies that have authority over data center development and here's how they work together. I do think that has been very helpful for local governments to just understand okay here's what the state is doing and here's what I can do. Um so that is one example in terms of a regional group that is trying to support localities. I can't think of one off the top of my head. Thank you for that. Um how long from the time a data center is built and open to when it becomes obsolete we have any frame of reference for that? >> Um we do not I mean we do not know how data center development is going to unfold. I think is it likely that we just won't have data centers anymore? Probably not. uh will it maybe not scale up to the degree that we're hearing it's going to scale up? That is definitely a possibility. Um and is it possible that a facility being proposed in your community will go out of business? Of course. Um there are some local governments have started including in their zoning ordinances a requirement for a decommissioning plan. Um so that the developer has to provide information on if we no longer exist, what is the plan? How will we return this site back to either its original use or so that it can be used by other uses? >> Thank you. Can you give us any sense of how much it costs to decommission and dispose of the building and the equipment what you were sort of just referencing? Um are there any plans that you're aware of currently that? >> I do not know. I once was on a webinar and made a comment about how I would like to look more into Virginia and some of these states that have hosted data centers for a long time to understand how many have decommissioned and to your question what is the cost of that decommissioning and somebody had put in the chat I live in Virginia and they are all still here so um I don't know if we have that manyam it's just too early especially in these larger scale facilities to really know how long it will take or uh what the cost would be. >> Can you um can you explain what lead certification stands for, what it is, um what it uh signifies? >> I actually can't tell you what the acronym for LEAD is. I should know this. Um but LEAD is a uh green building practice for construction, design, planning. I'm sure there's a lead facility in your community. There are many different ways that uh a developer can achieve lead status, whether it's from uh energy efficiency upgrades or not energy efficiency upgrades, but creating a very energyefficient facility. Um even I think like um when lights automatically go on and off when you leave a room. I mean that that those are the types of things that get you to your lead certification. on-site uh green roofs or solar roofs uh green building practices. So, how are you uh disposing of the construction materials? Are you recycling construction materials? Um I I don't know if these slides will be shared uh but if you look up the US Green Building Council lead for data centers, they go through what is lead for data centers and you can also look on their website to see what lead is generally for other types of buildings. um how do you achieve lead for data centers uh etc. >> Lead stands for leadership in energy and environmental design. >> Yeah. Um so thank you whoever wrote this including the sources that you believe is that correct? Yeah, >> do you have any information about how electric? >> No, it's way too early. I mean, that facility, it maybe just got built, but it might even still be under construction. This was just approved a few years ago. And you would not see. Generally, we are not seeing these rate increases yet. Even for some of the data center development that we've started to see, um while people are concerned about their electricity rates and there have been uh affordability concerns, the uh the reason for that is actually more on infrastructure costs, distribution costs, transmission costs. um not because of data center development. I think all of the conversations about that are more looking out into the future of what is the potential impact here, but we're not seeing rate increases as a result of data center development quite yet. Also in Cedar Rapids, what's been the biggest challenge that they have had in maintaining consistent reliable operations that data there? >> So the question is basically can Allant power the facility reliably? Alliance says that they can. Um so yeah, I mean again it's too early to know. um if there's any challenges there. I would say if you are wanting to see what are the types of impacts that data centers might have on the utility on the grid, you really need to be looking in the Virginiaas and the Californiaiforns and the Texas where you've seen a lot of this development for a while. There was recently an event where um about two to three gigawatts of uh I think about three gigawatts of data center capacity uh suddenly went offline uh from the system. They didn't really go offline. They just disconnected and used their backup generators. Uh and this did cause some the grid is a balance. You always have to maintain equal power to use. So for a really big user like that in one area to suddenly disconnect from the grid that can have ramifications for the grid. We have not had blackout events resulting from something like that. Um but that was a concern and some of the regional entities that deal with electric grid issues are looking at that event and starting to talk about how do we update our interconnection uh interconnection requirements and operating requirements to ensure that we're maintaining reliable electricity with more and more data center development on the system. >> Can data centers use salt water um from the ocean as opposed to fresh water? >> I don't know. I I'm sure they could with some kind of desalinization process or maybe they can have salt as part of the process. I don't know if that would impact the cooling uh capabilities. >> Are you aware are you aware of any data centers that are able to generate their own water andor electricity fully? Um, no, but I think that we are going to see more onsite generation associated with data center development. Um, you mentioned at the beginning that I work with a group called the MYSO cities and communities coalition. These are local governments that engage with their regional grid operator uh who's called MYSO. MYSO uh sets rules and um plans transmission projects. They do a lot of different things to maintain reliable and affordable electricity across these 15 states across the Midwest and the southern United States. And um they are starting to look at setting rules because of that gap that I showed you of how long it can take to build certain generation resources or transmission versus how quickly these data centers want to get online. Um, MYSO is currently considering rules to uh basically speed up the process for colllocated generation and data center development so that they could get on the grid more quickly. Um, so they wouldn't technically be off-grid, but they would be onsite and just connected to the data center development. Um, I don't know if that's like very helpful, but I do think we're going to see more on-site generation, though we're not quite seeing yet data centers that are fully powering themselves with on-site generation. There are examples like um uh XAI in I think Memphis. Um this is one of Elon's facilities that used 30 on-site natural gas facilities. Um that's very that's an anomaly, but he they're still connected to the grid, but that was a way for them to power really quickly without waiting for uh grid approvals is just using all this on-site gas. But that's a temporary solution, not a permanent one. Lots of energy questions. Um, do data center designs lend themselves to concurrent solar energy collection either currently or in the near future that you're aware of? Um, I don't know if the person who asked this question wants to clarify concurrent. Does anybody who asked about the concurrent solar energy use want to clarify that? >> Um, going given the proximity to Lake Michigan, what are the prospects of a data center being So, >> so uh from my understanding what is uh the the attraction for data centers to come up to Wisconsin and be near Lake Michigan is actually less to actually use the water of Lake Michigan, but because of the cooler climate here, um the Port Washington facility is using a closed loop cooling system and is not going to use much on-site water. Now there of course is the water usage associated with the power generation but I don't know how much the data center developer is really thinking through that part because that's just up to the utility to figure out. Um so what is the likelihood? I mean I did show this map that uh illustrated what the expectation is for Wisconsin is not the same level of development in Iowa or Illinois. Um and Iowa I mean it's groundwater there. They're not it's they're not being pulled to a large lake there. They're likely being pulled to Iowa because there's a lot of wind there, cheap energy costs, um and maybe a few other reasons that, you know, I don't want to get into the developer's head on why they're going where they're going, but how likely a developer will come to Shboen, I don't know. >> So, this isn't a question for you per se, but it is a question I wanted to read. How this question is how does how does the city of Shboen partner with Shabar Shboen County regarding zoning? And the short answer is that we do not. We are separate municipal entities that have our own zoning processes and zoning codes. Um some of you who are active on social media may have seen that um there are certain members of our community who are encouraging um other cities within the county, other townships within the county uh to put moratoriums um in place or to examine their own zoning um because we don't the Shbboen County um can't control zoning for all municipalities. So it's really municipality by municipality. So, if you have friends out there in Shabboan County and you're concerned about this topic, um I would reach out to them about what their local municipality is doing on this front. >> You had mentioned um you talked about the comprehensive plan um process. You talked about um how zoning plays into that. So, this question is related to that. What's the difference between zoning and a local comprehensive plan? Um, which one would Shboan use to require new businesses to use on-site renewable and/or zero emission energy? >> Yeah. So, the comprehensive plan is the guiding it is the guiding force behind what local a local government does. So, it is meant to be the rationale for why communities are making decisions around developments and it should inform a community zoning code. A community does not require things in its comprehensive plan but simply states what are our goals and objectives for economic development, the environment, housing. Um and then those objectives should be reflected in the zoning ordinance. Uh I should clarify that while I did provide St. Louis, Missouri as an example, there are certain things that St. Louis did that I do not think that a city in Wisconsin can do. Um but there may be other opportunities. So local governments um do not just have to require. They can incentivize developers to do certain things by maybe uh saying uh well maybe you get a different setback requirement or a density bonus or some like uh in in commercial uh buildings sometimes communities will say you can build one story higher if you do this thing. Um, and that's a way to incentivize certain types of development without maybe requiring it. Um, so if you were to make some kind of requirement, it would be in a zoning ordinance, but it's not necessarily the case that Shabboan should require something. And on the same note regarding comprehensive plan and zoning, um many of you may be aware of this, but part of the reason that we have this engagement series um going on right now is that the comprehensive plan is supposed to inform zoning and that is currently in progress and nearing its completion at this point in time. You can look online to find the current draft of the comprehensive plan and review that. Um, our planning director, Taylor, is in the back of the room if you guys haven't met her before. And, um, that is a major project that her team has been working on along with other city staff for some time. We want that to be in place before we finalize zoning. And zoning's, I would say, not maybe the next, but it is another big initiative that's coming once the comprehensive plan is in place um, in its updated version. question says it sounded as if communities cannot just refuse to have a data center because they don't want it. Is that true? >> Yeah, I think you know I've actually been grappling with this question because there are definitely examples where communities have just long-term moratoriums on say wind development or renewable development. So communities have set long-term moratoriums on certain types of uses. Um, but local governments really do need to have clear legal justification for the decisions that they're making. Going back to the comprehensive plan, to the zoning ordinance, to the development review. Um, I I so local No, I would say local governments cannot arbitrarily refuse something just because they think they don't like it. I mean there has to be clear illustration of what the impacts are going to be on the community and the local government should really set uh clear standards for development. >> Thank you. Um we wanted to see if you could elaborate on the motion of state preeemption um or you know can state limit local policies that are set in place? >> Um well they certainly do. Um there are um preeemptions not just here in Wisconsin but across the country. I work with a lot of different communities who will think oh like we can't do this because we're in Wisconsin. We can't do this because we're in Iowa. And while there are differences among states, a lot of states have very similar preeemptions. So um I don't want to give that impression that other states don't have similar preeemptions. Uh that is definitely a legal planning question. Um, and you could probably have a whole talk at the American Planning Association uh conference on that topic. Um, so the state can preempt things and they do. Those things are challenged all the time. Yeah. To your knowledge, are there any near future alternative on-site options that would be um energy options usages that options? I'm I'm trying to phrase this differently. Uh basically, are there any options data centers are exploring to have their onsite onsite energy generation such as micronuclear? >> Um yes, micro nuclear is something that is discussed a lot. I will say battery storage is a big one and that you really are starting to see data centers implementing uh on-site battery storage or trying to figure out if they can um just because of the scale required of solar and wind having enough solar and wind to power a one gawatt data center on site is not likely. Uh but storage can definitely play a really big role on site. Uh, and there are other uh, options. So maybe a data center isn't going to use on-site generation for all of its needs. Um, but they can also use um, they're called virtual power plants. So essentially, how do I explain this in like five minutes? So or in 5 seconds. Okay. So, basically if you have roof rooftop solar, uh you are producing a little bit of energy for your household and maybe you are selling a little bit of ext excess electricity when you're not using it back to your utility. There's also an opportunity to aggregate a ton of different houses with rooftop solar to create kind of a large power plant from all of the excess electricity that you might be generating. There might be opportunities for data centers to enter into agreements with their electric utility to uh use generation from virtual power plants or to work with residents directly. Um so that's another potential opportunity uh on site can not on site but you know what I mean not using traditional uh power power generation. Can you tell us a little bit more about your recommendations or insights that you have about the community benefit agreements that you had referenced? >> Yeah, so um this is a really good question because there are a lot of organizations and researchers that are working on this issue because there are a few challenges with community benefit agreements. Number one is different states have different requirements or uh rules around what local governments can uh do with community benefit agreements. So, uh, not all local governments are authorized to even use comm community enter into community benefit agreements. So, that's number one is it's very important to understand what is your state context. Uh, I do not know of any preeemptions in Wisconsin against community benefit agreements, but I do think this is being discussed amongst some local governments in the state of what they can really do. The second is enforcement. There are a lot of community benefit agreements associated with energy projects across the country. Um, if you want to look at these, go to World Resources Institute. They have a really nice database of community benefit frameworks for all different kinds of energy projects, mining facilities, solar facilities, wind, and they're doing more work on data centers. And the challenge with a lot of those agreements in that database is lack of enforcement mechanisms or vague language. So if a community says um hey developer will you give it your best effort to uh hire a 100 local jobs what is a data center developer's best effort and what are your mechanisms to challenge the developer if they don't make good on that promise. So strong and clear enforcement mechanisms and uh guar you know commitments are really important. Uh also it's very important that the community is involved uh in that process. So in Port Washington for example, they didn't have a traditional community benefit agreement but the developer is paying for a lot of uh the water utilities infrastructure not just for its project but for other needs for the water utility. the community was still very opposed to that development either because they weren't aware that I mean m whether if you were to ask a community member they might either not know that those investments were being made or that may not be good enough for the community and they may seek other benefits as a part of that uh development. So it's very important that the community is involved. Um yeah, >> you had referenced Dane County a couple of times in your um presentation. Um and can you talk to us about any other Wisconsin communities that you feel have which I'm not sure if you know this, but we do have a moratorium in place currently for 12 months, which we could extend um to 18. But beyond the moratoriums that you mentioned and some of the policies within Dayne County, are there other communities that you feel um whether it's through proactive zoning or other types of regulations are really um taking those proactive measures here within the state. Um Lacrosse County also has a similar initiative as Dne County um to bring together multiple jurisdictions to really understand data center impacts. Um, I know there are a few zoning ordinances in development that I can't really talk about because they're in development and they're not public. So, there are local governments that are working on this issue that I think is very promising. Um, and a lot of local governments participate in something called the Wisconsin Local Government Climate Coalition. um which is a really great way for local governments to understand, okay, what are my peer communities doing? Um so that's just another thing I want to throw out there that there are a lot of communities that are actively trying to understand this issue so that they're not just passing a zoning ordinance that they're going to want to redo uh in a year's time and are really feeling good about the requirements that they're putting in place. I'm trying to phrase this within maybe your frame of reference or even just your opinion. Um, are there communities that are considering or um looking to face challenges around potential uh data centers being potential security targets? Um, is there anything within your frame of reference that you could share in terms of how communities are acting to data centers being potential targets? That is a really good question. Uh I don't have an example. It doesn't mean that it's not a part of the community zoning code and I just missed it because it wasn't necessarily what I was looking for. Um you know I have been attending some of Dne County's advisory committee meetings just to kind of watch and learn and see what the discussions are like. and they had somebody from fire and safety just talking about the fire and safety considerations for data center development and they were talking about how you know if there was a fire at a data center facility that would be bad because there's a lot of technology and IT equipment in that facility that you do not want to see what would be released into the air if you were to light that on fire just like you don't want to light your phone on fire or other technology and I had thought Oh man, I just wonder I just I just I wonder if everybody understands that because data center developments are controversial facilities and that is a possibility that you could see something like that. The question might have been more about cyber security and that I don't know if local governments are thinking about at all. data center developers themselves, whether the local government is putting requirements on them or not, data centers have significant security surrounding their facilities. I mean, they are fencing the facilities. In fact, what this um fire chief had talked about in the conversation was about being able to access the facility in the case of a fire because it might be challenging to do so. Um, they were not concerned about being able to do that. It just meant proactive planning with the development. But I I will just say data center developers do have significant security. Um it doesn't mean that local government shouldn't also be thinking about it. I just don't know if any are. >> Did anyone have questions they've not yet submitted? Was it related to energy usage or there there are some questions that are well outside the frame of reference for the speaker that purposely were not asked because they are well outside the frame of reference. There are questions that we've said at the um end of each presentation that we're holding back for potentially the next presentation because it would be more relevant to that. Um so that's a consideration. Um duplication of questions we're combining. So, um, if you have a question that you haven't submitted, please write it down so that we consistently have them recorded because we're also saving all the questions that have been submitted >> with the community benefit agreement database. That one, the one with the community benefit agreement database, it's called World Resources Institute. Yes. And uh that database is really big. So if you want some to really focus on, I would look at the Stillwater mining agreement. Um that agreement has very strong enforcement mechanisms and has been in place since 2000. Uh and might have really interesting lessons for communities when they're thinking about data center community benefit agreements. So the US has this I'm just gonna read this. The US has 3,960 data centers. Other countries a few hundred per country. China has nine, Russia has 200, Japan has 10. Um is this good or bad for the US in terms of that level of technology? Assuming these numbers are correct. Uh I really can't speak to whether this is beneficial for the US. Um my goal it's very challenging to separate artificial intelligence from data center developments. Of course, I do feel like for my research and to best support local governments, I try to really focus on just what are the potential impacts of data center development and not on the side of is artificial intelligence good or bad for the United States. Is this type of investment good for the United States? Because it just it's important, I think, for local governments to try their best to separate those two issues while also recognizing, of course, they are tied in people's minds. Um but local governments also have their own legal authorities to contend with. So I don't have a great answer for that. Um yeah, thank you. In your presentation you defined collocation and hypers scale data centers. Uh have communities implemented similar definitions in their zoning code specific to collocation and hypers scale and would defining those be useful? >> That's a really good question. Um I what I appreciate about the Lynn County Iowa ordinance and the St. Louis Missouri ordinance that I shared is they don't use those terms. They define facilities just by their electricity usage and or size and or water usage. I think this is helpful because I have seen some ordinances define hypers scale facilities which I think can be a little confusing if you have a large scale collocation facility that has the same impacts as a hypers scale facility. Um, it's not necessarily a bad thing to define those things in your code, but I think what's really important is simply that you're defining them by size or or energy usage. And the actual term that you use to describe it is maybe not so important. And it it doesn't really matter if it's a collocation facility or for one customer or um or something else. It's really about how big is the facility, how much electricity does it use, what kind of impacts is it going to have for the community? Thank you. With the possible increase in more and larger data centers coming to the US in future, do you know if our grid personnel is how this is um phrased or people responsible for our energy grid um have plans so that both heavy duty industry and data centers have enough power So there are several different entities that play a role in shaping the electric grid. You have your electric utility, of course, you have your utility regulator. If you have an investor-owned utility or in Wisconsin, a municipal utility, they are regulated by the state public service commission. Um or if you have a a cooperative utility, they are regulated by their own board. Um and then the state legislature obviously plays a little bit of a role because they can make directives that influence what the public service commission does around data center development. Uh and then you have this regional grid operator that I mentioned uh MYSO they are responsible for basically when electricity leaves state lines. So they are focused on the transmission infrastructure um interconnection to that largecale electric grid um where your state public service commission is focused on the local distribution grid um and then that regional entity is regulated by the federal energy regulatory commission. The reason that I bring up all of those entities is because they are all doing all kinds of things to figure out uh how do we protect consumer rates? How do we uh ensure sometimes that basically MYSO the regional grid operator their members are the electric utilities. So they their role is to make is they are beholden to their members. So they have an interest in how do we get these generation resources online quickly actually to facilitate data center development. um because utilities are trying to get these generation resources online but the regional grid operator has to look at do we have enough transmission capacity uh to accommodate that. Is it going to cause any impacts to the wider electric grid? So this question about do do they have a plan is complex because I would say there are a lot of different little plans going on and a lot of different rulemakings going on at all different kinds of levels. Uh yeah, I mean that's that's the most challenging thing is it's not as simple as going to the state public service commission and being like what's your plan? It's it's understanding okay how are we protecting consumer rights first of all. Second of all, how are we ensuring that there's going to be enough generation capacity online? Or should large energy users have to go through some kind of interconnection queue and process, which they do, but should they have more thorough rules before they can connect to the electric grid? There's a lot of different entities that you have to speak to to um really get get to the answer, but I would say the the answer is there are a lot of different people working on a lot of different things. And it's kind of a not a battle of who wins, but it's a it's a conversation amongst community organizers that go to public service commissions, amongst electric utilities that go to the public service commission, the public service commission themselves, the state legislature that makes directives to the public service commission. um there's a lot of players at play uh that are influencing what what happens >> and I think you've said and we've also heard in um previous presentations that engagement at the state level is really important um on this issue that we can only control so much locally and obviously we want to put as many controls in place that we can um but that's all of our questions we appreciate your time tonight thank you very much um as I had said any questions that were not asked. They were specifically not relevant to our speaker or to our topic tonight. We do have questions that we're holding for the next presentation um which will happen next week. We invite you guys all back um next Wednesday. We have a representative from Ellers who's going to be here and really be talking about financial impacts within the community when data centers come to town. Um so we hope we see many if not all of you guys there. Um bring your friends with you. More the marrier. Um, and I think that's it for this evening. Thank you all again. Thank you so much, Britney. We appreciate your time.