You are not the first to ask
Nearly two hundred
communities, same questions.
This is not a fight one county is having alone. It is a national pattern, and the parts of it that have been measured say something specific about what participation is worth.
What they did about it
Several put a pause in writing.
A moratorium is not a rejection. It is a decision to finish asking questions before voting, which is the same thing being asked for here.
- 32-month moratorium
Northampton County, North Carolina
Adopted May 2026.
- 60-day moratorium
Durham, North Carolina
Adopted to allow time for stronger zoning.
- One-year permitting moratorium
Manitowoc County, Wisconsin
Recommended by county committee.
- Ballot measure
Port Washington, Wisconsin
Voters required voter approval for data-center tax incentives.
Each of these is on the record2.
The measured result
When Ohio changed the rules, the ask got smaller.
Ohio adopted ratemaking provisions similar to Virginia’s, requiring large electricity users to carry more of the cost they cause. Afterwards, data-center demand requests in the state fell from about 30 gigawatts to about 13 gigawatts.
Read that again, because it is the whole argument for participating. The projects that withdrew were not stopped by a protest. They withdrew once they were asked to pay their own costs. Demand that evaporates when it has to pay for itself was never firm demand.3
Virginia wrote down who pays.
The Virginia State Corporation Commission approved a separate electricity rate class for data centers above 25 megawatts, effective January 2027. Reporting attributed an additional $11.24 per month in 2026 for a typical Dominion residential customer to data-center load.
The point is not that Virginia solved it. The point is that the question of who pays was answered in a filing rather than left to a promise.4
The number underneath all of it
The demand being planned for may not arrive.
Analysis of a December 2025 Greenlink report found that projected demand growth across Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina has roughly a 0.2 percent probability of materializing as forecast.
Infrastructure gets built against forecasts. Abatements get granted against forecasts. If the forecast is wrong, the buildings and the tax agreements remain.5
What that means for the numbers in front of this county is on The Math, and what to do about it is on Take Action.
Sources on this page
- ↑
Data Center Watch report, Data Center Watch (2026-01-01). National registry — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-27 - ↑
Northampton County adopts a data center pause, North Carolina Health News (2026-05-08). With WRAL, WPR, and MultiState on the other jurisdictions — view source
Accessed 2026-07-27 - ↑
Data Center Power Demands Are Contributing to Higher Energy Bills, Environmental and Energy Study Institute (2026-01-01). Ratemaking and demand — view source
Accessed 2026-07-27 - ↑
Virginia regulators approve new Dominion rates, Inside Climate News (2026-01-07). Rate class approval — view source
Accessed 2026-07-27 - ↑
Experts say data center growth is speculative, Southern Environmental Law Center (2025-12-01). Greenlink analysis — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-27
Last updated