Nashville’s Metro Council passed the city’s first set of regulations for data centers, and city officials are already promising more action to study potential impacts and strengthen environmental guardrails.
The legislation limits where facilities can be built based on size and energy use, how much noise they can produce and how often they can use on-site fossil fuel generation.
The council also passed a moratorium on new data center permits until December 1.
“This gives us time to do the good work of refining this policy, as I think some of us have some concerns around some environmental things,” said Councilperson Courtney Johnston, who sponsored the moratorium legislation.
Responding to public outcry
Both pieces of legislation were proposed and passed in less than two months, largely in response to public outcry over a project proposed by data center developer DC BLOX near the Nashville Zoo and another facility planned on Fisk University’s campus.
However, the new regulations may not apply to either project unless, in regard to DC BLOX’s plans, their initial permit is shown to be defective. The Nashville Zoo has an appeal that the Board of Zoning Appeals is expected to review next month.
“If that appeal is successful, and it turns out the zoning administrator maybe had incomplete information, or an incomplete evaluation of potential uses, there is still the potential that what they have claimed…may not apply in this case,” Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell said Wednesday on This is Nashville.
Another possibility to block the project is eminent domain. The council advanced O’Connell’s own legislation Tuesday that aims to apply eminent domain on the property where DC BLOX plans to construct two centers. DC BLOX just bought the more than 20-acre property last week for $23 million.
O’Connell said the company has been “completely unfair” to the community with its plans and thinks the use of eminent domain is appropriate.
“They ignored encouragement to go engage with the zoo and community,” O’Connell said. “I think some of the things they’ve said in public have really pushed the boundaries of truth and good faith.”
But the eminent domain process won’t be easy. The city will have to prove to a court that seizing the DC BLOX property is necessary.
More regulations possible
The city may consider additional regulations during the temporary moratorium.
Richard Massey, an activist from Memphis, said Nashville should start considering next steps now to further refine regulations, citing his experience watching Elon Musks’s xAI facility pollute and use massive amounts of water in his community.
“Go further by mandating environmental impact studies,” Massey said. “Mandate quarterly reporting for power demand.”
The legislation was amended Tuesday with some additional environmental protections, including restricting the use of fossil fuel generation to a defined emergency event. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has advocated for an additional standard of setting a firm cap of 25 megawatts for backup fossil fuel generation “to ensure these facilities don’t use emergency-generation provisions to operate private power plants, create new pollution burdens or proceed without adequate utility infrastructure,” the group wrote in a letter to city officials last week.
Under the new legislation, data center developers now must use at least 15% renewable energy, and the measure provides incentives for developers sourcing at least half their power from renewables, due to an amendment added by Councilmember Clay Capp. Renewables are defined as traditional sources like solar, geothermal and battery, which Capp said was a necessary step considering that the state of Tennessee legally defined one fossil fuel as renewable energy last year.
“We needed to make our own definitions as a city,” Capp told WPLN.
O’Connell suggested more work will be done in the coming months. He passed an executive order for all Metro Nashville departments to study the impact of data centers.
“We have until December to look at if we’re going to make any adjustments to the regulatory framework,” he said.
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