Sept. 14 will be D-Data-Centers-Day in at least 3 South Carolina communities.
On that day:
In Laurens County, council members have touted their Data Centers moratorium as a “pro-active” (rather than a “re-active) response to a “what if” a business proposes a Data Center. The last time local officials were contacted about one was 2018, a council member who’s on the local economic development board has said — abundant electricity was the drawback then, the member said.
The Laurens County ordinance is a 12-month pause in permitting, giving the County Planning Staff time to suggest places on the land-use map acceptable for Data Centers. Laurens County does not have zoning.
Its Public Hearing & 3rd (final) reading is scheduled for the regular County Council meeting, 6 p.m. in the Historic Courthouse in downtown Laurens.
The Colleton County Council will consider 3rd reading, and is advertising a public hearing, for an ordinance amending the zoning map to designate an area for “digital infrastructure overlay district.” Just last month, the Council adopted a 6-month moratorium on new Data Center permits; and opponents thought they would have at least that much time to weigh in on a Data-Centers-allowed-here zone.
But that timeframe now seems to be much more compressed. The proposed ordinance is not yet up on the Council page of the County website for review (as of Sept. 2).
In Clarendon County, the council is expecting to conduct a Public Hearing on a 6-month moratorium. That will not, however, apply to a Data Center already in the works for Santee Electric Cooperative’s Spec Building No. 9 in the Clarendon County Industrial Park.
That chance for public input, on the moratorium, is scheduled for Sept. 14.
The Colleton County issues related to Data Centers stem from a special exception requested by Thomas & Hutton engineering firm, of Savannah, Ga., and the Eagle Rock Partners project development and construction company, of Charlotte, N.C., of the Colleton County Board of Zoning Appeals (ZBA) for 850 acres of rural timberland project-site, owned by Weyerhaeuser, on Cooks Hill Road south of Walterboro. Nine buildings are proposed, surrounded by wetlands, and 1.5 wetland-acres would be filled. It could expand on a larger 2,600-acre Weyerhaeuser tract. There are conservation easements for nearby properties: Bonnie Doone, Ravenwood Plantation, Remley Point, Prospect Hill Farm, and Horseshoe Tract.
Opponents are worried about the potential effects on the ACE Basin, one of the Eastern United States’ most environmentally sensitive areas. A public discussion about the proposal was conducted in December in Walterboro.
A 6-month moratorium instituted by the Colleton County Council produced a 6-month pause in a lawsuit against the permit and the project. What happens after Sept. 14 - when the Colleton County Council considers a zoning map overlay ALLOWING Data Centers’ construction - related to the lawsuit remains to be seen.
Colleton County appears to be farther along than Laurens and Clarendon, and perhaps several other Data-Centers-concerned counties, in drafting a zoning designation guiding the placement of these massive information-housing campuses.
Meanwhile, east of clinton, along I-95, this is the Data Centers discussion:
by Melissa Foust-McCoy
Editor, The Manning Times
As concerns spread that a proposed Clarendon County data center could strain the electrical grid, increase customers’ bills or consume large amounts of water, local officials say the project would be smaller than many modern data centers and would pay for the infrastructure needed to serve it.
Known as Project 59, the proposed $130 million cloud-storage facility would occupy Santee Electric Cooperative’s existing Spec Building No. 9 in the Clarendon County Industrial Park. The approximately 100,000-square-foot building sits on a 32.5-acre industrial site. Clarendon County Business Development Director George Kosinski said the county does not know the identity of the company that ultimately would run the data center. A developer Kosinski identified as “Five Nines” is pursuing the project but would not operate the facility.
The project cannot move forward unless Santee Electric determines that sufficient electricity is available. The cooperative is studying whether it can supply the requested load and was expected to reach a decision in early September.
“They’re still waiting on some more information from the power company,” Councilman John Coker said during an Aug. 24 County Council meeting. If the necessary electricity is available and the remaining permits are issued, the facility’s demand is expected to grow to between 15 and 18 megawatts by 2029.
That would make Project 59 a large electricity customer. Most existing businesses inside the industrial park use between 1 and 3 megawatts, Kosinski said. However, the proposed data center’s demand would be comparable to some of Clarendon County’s largest manufacturing operations.
“I would consider this low on the water side, maybe high on the energy side,” Kosinski said.
Would customers’ electric bills increase?
Santee Electric buys its power through Central Electric Power Cooperative, which purchases electricity generated by Santee Cooper. Because the cooperatives serve multiple areas, a large new demand anywhere on that shared system could have effects beyond the county where a project is located.
The county has said Project 59 would pay the full cost of the infrastructure needed specifically for its service. The existing substation is expected to serve the facility, but the developer would pay for a dedicated feeder and any required substation transformer. Another transformer would be installed to serve the remainder of the industrial park.
No Santee Electric ratepayer would subsidize those project-specific costs, according to the county’s fact sheet. The facility would also receive interruptible service. During an emergency or system constraint, electricity to the data center could be curtailed to preserve service for homes and other existing customers. The data center would then rely on backup diesel generators.
Those safeguards are intended to protect existing customers, but the power-capacity study is not complete. Until Santee Electric releases its findings, the project’s broader effect on the cooperative’s electrical system — and whether the added demand could affect future rates — cannot be fully determined from the information released publicly.
Kosinski said the financial arrangement differs from some traditional development projects in which infrastructure improvements may be offered as an incentive.
“This company is going to pay for everything,” he said. “If you want to come and you need that much power, you’re paying for it.”
Where would its water come from?
Project 59 would receive water and wastewater service from the City of Manning. Under the current proposal, the facility would not independently withdraw water from a lake, river or private well. The facility is expected to use up to 8,000 gallons of city water and discharge approximately 1,400 gallons of wastewater each day.
Manning City Administrator Scott Tanner characterized 8,000 gallons per day as moderate-to-high use among the city’s industrial customers. The city’s largest water customer uses approximately 10,000 to 14,000 gallons per day, he said.
Although Project 59 would be a sizable customer, Tanner said Manning has enough capacity to serve it.
The city’s water system is permitted to provide 3.2 million gallons per day and has approximately 1.42 million gallons of unused daily capacity. At its projected maximum, Project 59 would use about one-quarter of 1% of the system’s total permitted capacity and slightly more than one-half of 1% of the currently available water.
“Capacity for this project isn’t an issue for the City of Manning, and we don’t anticipate any issues with providing services,” Tanner said.
The wastewater system can treat 5 million gallons per day and has approximately 3.2 million gallons of unused daily capacity. Tanner described the project’s anticipated wastewater discharge as moderate.
The data center would initially need approximately 40,000 gallons to fill its cooling system. That is a one-time amount, not its expected daily consumption.
County officials say the facility would use a closed-loop cooling system that continually recirculates the same water. Its daily demand would primarily replace water lost through evaporation and supply restrooms, sinks and irrigation.
The cooling system would reportedly be drained approximately once every 10 years.
Any Data-Centers-Allowed-Here local rules would be a welcome move by these facilities’ powerful allies, which include President Donald J Trump, whose recent comment on his social media platform was, ”The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame. China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can’t believe it is happening!”
Vice-President JD Vance agrees, “What the president said about data centers is they’re an important part of the AI economy. But when people build them, they have to build the power plants along with the data centers. … I think probably 99% of the backlash to data centers has come in areas where building a data center means higher utility and higher electricity for the people on the ground. So I think what these companies have to do is take advantage of some of the federal deregulatory efforts that we’ve undertaken. If you build a data center, you should be putting power back into the grid, not taking it out. And if that is happening, I don’t think the data centers are that controversial.”
NOTES: See a related article about a Spartanburg Data Center and its electricity at MyClintonNews.com
The Colleton County Administrator is Thomas Higgs, former Clinton City Manager and Laurens County Administrator.
The author, Vic MacDonald, is the Regional Editor of The Clinton Chronicle and The Walterboro Press & Standard and, beginning in October, The Manning Times. Reach him at 864-833-1900, or news@clintonchronicle.net.
