A look at the inside of data centers, which require coolant hoses and infrastructure for data servers. (Stock photo/Getty Images)
COLUMBIA — Seven state legislators whose districts cover parts of Colleton County officially came out against a gigawatt data center proposed for the rural county in South Carolina’s Lowcountry.
The legislators’ protest of the $6 billion project Thursday follows that of Colleton County residents who, in December, packed the Walterboro town auditorium to voice their opposition. Their bipartisan proclamation — signed by four Republicans and three Democrats (see below) — also came on the same day senators began hearing testimony on an effort to further regulate the data center industry.
These computing centers are facing pushback nationwide, even as more are planned to power technical advancements being driven by artificial intelligence.
Gigawatt data center proposal draws opposition from SC Lowcountry residents, politicians
The opposition is due in large part to the massive amount of energy required by large data centers — known as hyperscalers — which are coming online en masse at the same time residents are seeing major cost increases on their monthly power bills.
To address concerns, Sen. Tom Davis introduced legislation setting standards for how and where data centers are built in the Palmetto State, as well as how their power needs are paid for.
“There are certain parts of South Carolina that clearly aren’t suitable for data centers,” the Beaufort Republican told the SC Daily Gazette.
At the heart of the issue in Colleton County, he said, is the proximity to South Carolina’s beloved ACE Basin.
The 350,000-acre undeveloped estuary named for the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto rivers that feed are home to state and federally protected species.
The Ashepoo River lies about 6 miles south of the data center site. Last month, a pair of residents sued the county over a zoning law change that made the 860-acre project possible.
Davis’ proposal sets up an office within the state Department of Environmental Services to permit these centers, holding them to areas that can handle their demands for resources.
“Data centers have become an essential part of the digital economy,” said Rob Devlin, who leads the water permitting office inside the environmental agency. “They power everything from cloud computing and artificial intelligence to essential online services and businesses citizens rely on every day.”
At the same time, Devlin said, advanced planning on where to locate these centers for both power and water is essential, especially along the coast where residents rely heavily on underground aquifers for fresh water supply.
The Legislature could opt to task Devlin’s team with evaluating data centers for water use, noise and proximity to environmentally sensitive areas.
Data center operators historically have been secretive about water usage. It took a resident suing Dorchester County in 2024 to force the county to publicize water requirements for a Google data center located near rural St. George.
Davis’ proposal would mandate that data centers report that information to the state annually. And it would require data center developers use the most water-efficient methods available to cool the rows of computer servers that keep the country’s information superhighway humming.
Many, including the proposed Colleton County project, are already doing this.
Ken Loeber, co-founder of Charlotte-based development firm Eagle Rock Partners, in December said the Colleton County center would need about 12,000 gallons of water a day, the equivalent of 14, four-bedroom homes.
And in Aiken County, Facebook parent company Meta will use less than 30,000 gallons per day when the tech-giant’s data center is up and running, according to Will Williams, who handles economic development for Aiken, Edgefield, Saluda and McCormick counties.
Two other, smaller Aiken County data centers under development by DC Blox and a company called Oppidan are each expected to use 300 gallons per day or less, Williams told senators.
Most centers accomplish this by continuously recycling the water used, meaning operators really only have to fill the cooling tanks once.
Still, Davis said it’s important to make these best practices a requirement under law.
“Not just something that may happen on occasion, it ought to happen all the time,” he said.
Another key feature of Davis’ bill are tax incentives to encourage data center builders to redevelop existing industrial sites in the state.
“In South Carolina, we have 400 brownfield sites and other sites that used to be industrial uses. They’ve been abandoned,” Davis said. “Many of these locations already have utility capacity and transportation access, which means less environmental disruption and faster development.”
The bill breaks data centers into three tiers based on the amount of power they use — less than 10 megawatts, less than 50 megawatts and 51 megawatts or higher. The environmental agency has between 60 and 120 days to permit theses centers, based on how large they are.
In addition to water, the agency also must take into consideration air quality. And centers must have certain buffers — a half mile from national wildlife refuges and heritage preserves and a quarter mile from a critical habitat for endangered species.
When it comes to power, that remains the domain of state utility regulators under the proposal. The Public Service Commission will have to sign off on regulated power company’s arrangements with data centers, ensuring the centers alone are covering the cost of producing and transmitting the power they need.
Senators plan to take testimony on the matter from the state’s two major utility companies — Duke Energy and Dominion Energy — in the coming weeks as they continue to vet the bill.
While rural electric cooperatives in the state are controlled directly by their customers rather than regulators, those companies also already have protections in place so data centers and industry pay their fair share, John Frick, the cooperatives’ senior vice president for public policy, told senators Thursday. That includes requiring companies to prepay for equipment, such as substations and power lines.
SC’s state-owned utility enacts higher rates for data centers, large users
Meta, for example, paid Aiken Power Cooperative north of nine figures for equipment costs, Williams said.
Cooperatives also hold deposits on the books should the data center shutter before the costs to provide more power are paid back and set up minimums on the amount of power the centers must buy for annually, to ensure they’re actually paying for all the demand they claim they’ll have, Frick said.
Frick went on to say it’s a widespread misconception that none of the state’s rising power needs are coming from residential customers.
South Carolina’s population has grown by about 85,000 new residents annually over the last four years, Frick said. Based on average usage, that comes to about 238 megawatts of additional energy needs each year, he said.
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Still, the CEOs of Dominion and state-owned utility Santee Cooper told senators in September 2024 that data centers are driving 65% to 70% of their companies’ future energy demand. The two are partnering on a 2,200-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant, to be located about 15 miles away from the proposed Colleton County data center.
There’s also a difference in how data centers use power.
In the summer, when the air conditioning is pumping, residential users can pull as much as 7 kilowatts of power, Frick said, but they only hit that high mark about 25% of the time. To keep the lights on, power companies have to build power plants large enough to meet that top-level demand, even though only a fraction of it is in constant use.
Industry on the other hand sits at about 80% usage and data centers can be in excess of 90%. That higher level of usage, in turn, generates high sales and more money utilities can use to pay off fixed costs, such as power lines, bucket trucks and power plants.
Data centers can benefit communities in another way — in the form of property taxes.
In Aiken County for example, Williams said the government and schools will pull in $4.8 million annually for the next 40 years from Meta. That’s equivalent to the property taxes paid by 3,100 homeowners with homes valued at $375,000.
And the 100 jobs Meta pledged in the county — they’ll pay $130,000 a year, compared to the average manufacturing wage of $80,000.
Seven legislators in Colleton County’s nine-member delegation signed a resolution urging Colleton County Council “to oppose the proposed data center campus on Cooks Hill Road.”
They represent over 90% of the delegation’s “weighted vote,” according to the news release. In delegations, votes aren’t equal. Legislators’ votes are proportioned depending on how much of the county they represent.
“Whereas, the ACE Basin is one of the largest protected coastal ecosystems on the East Coast,” the resolution begins.
“The ACE Basin Initiative was established 36 years ago to protect and preserve the rich history and diverse ecosystems of the ACE Basin through voluntary public/private partnerships,” it continues. “Over its 36-year history the ACE Basin Initiative has facilitated protection of more than 350,000 acres in the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto River Basins through collaborative processes, resulting in state and federal wildlife refuges and preserves, state wildlife management areas, and private property protected by voluntary conservations easements.”
The “whereas” portion concludes with this line: “Data center developments are not appropriate in the Ace Basin Watershed.”
It’s signed by:
Delegation members not signing the resolution are Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg; and Rep. Bill Hager, R-Hampton.
_SC Daily Gazette Editor Seanna Adcox
Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
