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A proposed controversial $9.7 billion data center hit a hiccup on Tuesday when the LaGrange City Council chose not to move forward with annexing and rezoning 513 acres from the county into the city.

Much of the debate on the proposed data center centered around the massive amount of electrical power the development would need. The center and its proposed six 252,000-square-foot industrial buildings are estimated to need up to 600 megawatts of power. 

To put that in perspective, the whole City of LaGrange uses about 100 megawatts of power. So, the data center would need roughly six times the power the city currently uses.

City Manager Patrick Bowie said the data center and others will certainly put a strain on the energy market.

“The southeast projects about 32 gigawatts of data center load over the next 15 years,” Bowie said. One unit at Plant Vogtle is 1.1 gigawatts. So you’re talking about roughly 30, maybe 31 or so, units of power in the southeast over the next 15 years to serve these data center loads,” Bowie said.

Bowie noted that our internet consumption is causing the need for data centers.

“As long as we’re on social media and streaming Netflix, all the programs are moving to the cloud. Those data centers are coming, whether they come to LaGrange, Georgia, or even the state of Georgia, they’re going to be in the southeast at some point.” Bowie said,

“That’s definitely going to strain the broader energy markets. There’s no doubt that there is going to be a strain on electric generation, which now can only be natural gas, because of environmental laws that have put so many restrictions on coal generation,” Bowie said.

Many coal plants are also shutting down because it’s uneconomical to keep the plants running, and it sometimes takes 15 years or more for nuclear plants to be constructed. 

“We just built two units [at Vogtle], and it took a long time to build them. So it’s all natural gas. There’s going to be pressure on the power markets. There’s going to be pressure on the natural gas markets, regardless of where these things are located in LaGrange or South Carolina,” Bowie said.

Councilman Tom Gore asked Bowie simply if the proposed data center would drive up the cost of electricity.

“Yes,” Bowie replied. “What I’m saying in broader words, yes. Whether it’s in LaGrange or whether it’s not, the local utility companies where they locate will certainly be trying to earn a return on investment.”

Bowie explained that when the data centers come in, they pay for all the substation infrastructure, the transmission improvements that have to be made, and the costs associated with serving their loads, so there’s not an immediate impact. There’s only a benefit for the local utility, but the broader energy markets nationwide are going to be impacted as loads continue to grow and put pressure on generation.

To move forward with the potential annexation, the city is required to notify the county of the request.

During the subsequent council meeting, Mayor Jim Arrington requested a motion to proceed with notifying the county of the request. Councilman Nathan Gaskin made the motion, but none of the remaining council members seconded the motion, so the measure died for lack of a second.

While the action, or lack thereof, doesn’t necessarily stop the proposed data center, it certainly puts a wrench in the plans. The issue could still return before the council.