- The Boom of the Indiana Data Center requires much more power, and it risks crawling customers with the cost.
- State legislators are considering a bill to put technological companies in Hanging for 80% of the costs of the project.
- Data centers may need more power than the 7 million residents of the combined Indiana.
When President Donald Trump announced in January an agreement with a billionaire in Dubai to build data centers across the United States, he immediately raised alarms in Indiana.
Trump said the state and seven others were part of the first phase of the $ 20 billion foreign investment plan. This could add to the growing fleet of data centers under construction of Indiana under construction by companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google, which need enormous amounts of computer power for the boom of artificial intelligence. Growth is risking salt residents with hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs thanks to higher energy bills.
The situation has launched a debate in Indiana to find out who should pay the bill for the new power plants and the transmission infrastructure necessary to serve the data centers. A bill crossing the Indiana Legislative Assembly would require technological companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google to cover 80% of the costs of the project, which, if promulgated, would make it the first state to do so. At the same time, the bill would allow the public services of Indiana to try to adopt the construction costs of small nuclear reactors to customers. Technological companies hope that these energy solutions at an early stage could one day provide more cleaning power and 24 hours a day.
It is a mixed bag for Indiana residents to which consumers’ defense groups are opposed and underlines a dilemma that many states across the country are confronted: how to keep the technological companies responsible for their power centers eager for power and their promises that AI will be supplied by green energy. Until now, fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal power plants should meet demand.
“If companies want to build a data center here and we have to build a new electricity production for them, then they must share this risk,” the Indiana representative, Ed Soliday, a Republican who is the author of the bill. “There are a few people from the data center who said:” Oh no, it’s not fair. “Yes, it’s.
Indiana short electricity data centers
While Indiana does not exceed the list of the main hubs in the American data center, the state of the rust belt is becoming another player for many reasons. Indiana has a reliable supply of coal and natural gas and can draw electricity from two regional networks. This state has a low risk of natural disasters that could disrupt this offer. Indiana legislators in 2019 exempt equipment from the data center and the energy consumption of sales taxes. The land is also cheaper than the other parts of the country.
These advantages have attracted large data centers in northern Indiana. Last year, Amazon Web Services began building an $ 11 billion data center campus in New Carlisle. Google has announced its intention to build a $ 2 billion data center in Fort Wayne. Microsoft provides a $ 1 billion database center in Laporte; Meta invests $ 800 million in a campus in southern Indiana which could operate by 2026.
Pipeline projects could consume more electricity than nearly 7 million Indiana residents combined by 2035, according to forecasts by the public state services analyzed by the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, a defense group that opposes the development of the data center.
The coalition called for a moratorium on new data centers until heads of state can study their potential impact on the electricity network and public service bills. But while more and more projects are entering the pipeline with the support of state officials, the coalition last year intervened in negotiations between a public service and the data center industry – notably Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft – aimed at ensuring that companies pay a fair share for their energy consumption and upgrades of associated electrical network infrastructure. In November, the parties concluded an agreement to protect Indiana customers from certain additional costs by demanding large data centers each month to pay at least 80% of their electricity consumption under contract, even if they do not use it. The new transmission infrastructure and electricity production to serve data centers could cost up to $ 1 billion, according to the agreement.
Indiana regulators approved the settlement in February. Public service, Indiana Michigan Power, has initiated the changes to its major industrial energy users to pay after the data centers could increase the demand for cutting -edge electricity by 2030, to more than 7,000 megawatts. This is equivalent to power for around 4.6 million residents in the state or two thirds of the Indiana population. And this is only the service area of a utility. The latest forecasts by the Northern Indiana Public Service Company show that data centers could double its energy request by 2035.
Andrew Williamson, directory of regulatory services of Indiana Michigan Power, said in a written testimony that the extent of the electricity demand was unprecedented and unlike any previous energy load added that the public service has ever known.
‘More harm than good’
Rather than concluding a public service by a public service, consumer defenders have declared that a law across the state could better protect the residents of Indiana against the increase in energy bills associated with new data centers.
But the bill that goes through the State Legislative Assembly has not succeeded, said Ben Inskeep, director of the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana program. He said the bill contains a flaw, in the sense that it does not cover special contracts that public services can negotiate with data centers for electricity rates. The bill would also create an accelerated process to approve a new production of electricity by a utility that wishes to connect large energy charges such as a data center, which, worried, would not allow enough time for the public contribution. The Coalition also hopes that legislators eliminate the provisions allowing public services to request authorization from state regulators to recover up to 100% of the construction costs of small nuclear reactors from customers.
“We need state decision -makers to reflect on these questions,” said Inskeep. “But we want to make sure that what they do is no more harm than good.”
Indiana governor Mike Braun told News 10 in February that he supported nuclear energy, but that public services should bear costs.
“I hesitate to put this only at the rear of taxpayers,” said Braun, adding that public service companies will have to absorb these costs thanks to “capitalism”.
“They are there as investors, and part of this should be the risk they take,” said Braun.
The bill adopted the Chamber on February 13 and was referred to a senatorial committee. The Indiana legislature is in session until April.
Meanwhile, the Boom of the Data Center does not show any signs of slowdown in Indiana and the United States, including foreign investors wishing to obtain participation in the AI race.
Hussain Sajwani, a real estate tycoon nicknamed the “Donald de Dubai”, has trade agreements with Trump and Elon Musk. It is not clear if the planned investment of $ 20 billion in Sajwani data centers in Indiana is not clear, but for Inskeep, it was not surprising.
“Oh, here is another,” said Inskeep about her initial reaction. “Right now, we just see so many data centers flooding in Indiana which is a bit overwhelming. And it is really difficult to understand the extent of the impacts.”
Google refused to comment on, Microsoft did not respond, and Amazon and the coalition of the data center did not send any comments at the time of publication.
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