The US president has said that new and large data centers must produce their own electricity. In a post on Truth Social on Wednesday 21 October he wrote that such facilities are "mandated by me" to make their own power and to give or sell any surplus to the local community or the grid. He added that data centers would become popular in their regions if the companies paid the community, or people in it, a dividend, and he argued that electricity prices could fall substantially.
A Post, Not Yet A Rule
Bisnow, which covered the post, says it is unclear whether any executive action will back it up, and the post does not say how the requirement would be put into force or enforced. It gives no size threshold and no start date. Until an order appears, the statement is a signal about direction and not something a project can be designed to.
It lands in a debate that is already running. According to Bisnow, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission turned down an effort this month to make data centers on the largest U.S. grid bring their own generation before they connect. The administration's Ratepayer Protection Pledge from March, in which technology companies agree to cover the full cost of power delivery and grid upgrades, leaves open what counts as full cost.
Many Developers Are Already There
Much of the industry is moving in that direction on its own because grid connections take so long. Bisnow points to Meta's Hyperion campus in Louisiana, developed together with power plants, as one example. Recent items on this site show how common it has become, from a Texas campus approved with its own gas plant to a fuel cell plant for a Wyoming data center. The post may push the others the same way, or it may meet resistance; the sources do not say.
The dividend idea reflects public feeling. The American Bazaar quotes a Gallup survey from March in which 71 percent of Americans said they oppose a data center in their own area, with noise and water as the main reasons given. Amazon and Meta have each pledged at least $1 billion for communities that host their data centers, the same report says.
What Making Your Own Power Involves
A campus that supplies itself becomes a power plant owner, whatever it was before. It needs fuel contracts, air permits, operators, spare parts and a plan for what happens when a unit is out. Selling the surplus brings it back to the grid operator and a grid connection, so the wait for the wires does not disappear. And all that generation, whether engines, turbines or fuel cells, turns a good share of its fuel into heat that has to go to the outside air. Space and airflow for that are easier to settle early on the site plan than later. For the background see data centers and power generation.
Sources: Bisnow (via Yahoo), Benzinga (via Yahoo Finance), The American Bazaar
