One of their biggest demands is electricity. Not only do these facilities need to power the banks and banks of computer servers they house, they also need to power high-intensity cooling systems.
"Even one data center, one of these large hyperscale data centers, can really consume so much power that you start to risk not having sufficient power for other future economic development needs," OKC Planning Director Geoffrey Butler said. "We would not want to have data center development impede our ability to develop or to kind of attract a large employer because there was a lack of power."
But electric utility service isn't under the city's purview. And Jim Eldridge, an economic development manager with OG&E, said utilities can't just turn data center developers away.
"We want to make sure that everyone understands, OG&E is required by the Oklahoma Constitution to serve all customers," Eldridge said. "That doesn't mean we say yes to everything a customer requests from us."
To power data centers without making the rest of the grid less reliable will likely require more electric generation capacity.
"We expect them to pay for the infrastructure upgrades they need," Eldridge said. "We expect them to pay for the generation they need and have those generation resources identified and spelled out."
Eldrige said OG&E may consider proposing rate tariffs for very large customers like data centers, although they would need approval from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. He also said the utility is working on special contracts with data center developers that have approached them.
"What that special contract does, is it really kind of isolates the data center's negative impacts on pricing and capacity away from existing customers," Eldridge said.
T.O. Bowman, who leads the Office of Sustainability within the OKC Planning Department, said data centers are on the hunt for places that would subsidize part of their power needs. Bowman pointed to a Harvard Electricity Law Initiative publication that analyzed testimony from 50 regulatory hearings about data centers. Testimony showed that, in several cases, data centers said they would withdraw if regulators enacted unfavorable changes.
"Utility prices inform where they build new facilities — which, you know, surprise, surprise," Bowman said. "But not just that it informs the decision, but also that new regulations could lead them to reconsider their investment there…It shouldn't be any secret that we have to talk around. It's just a fact of how these negotiations work."
It's not the only way data centers' needs clash with utilities'. Developers want data centers powered up and working as quickly as possible.
"Tech industry philosophy, of course, is to move fast and break things," Bowman said. "And utility philosophy is to not allow things to break and move very slowly. Keep the lights on."
Eldridge said the time it takes to build a data center should give the utility time to catch up.
"Data centers can take years to build out to full use," he said. "So they have what's called a ramp-up in power… It can take some period of time until that full use is fully realized."
Off-grid options
To protect their equipment and maximize profits, these facilities want to be operational 24/7, even during a grid outage. To do that, they rely on an army of massive diesel generators.
"These are not your diesel generator you see next to a food truck," Bowman said. "It is multitudes larger than those."
Generators are among the loudest, most polluting components of a data center. They generate ozone-forming emissions similar to cars and plenty of heat as well.
Several planning commissioners and planning department staff visited a hyperscale data center in Atlanta last month. At the study session, they remarked on how well the walls around the generators redirected sound upward rather than out toward surrounding neighborhoods.
But when it comes to emissions, the walls don't make a difference. Quiet, hidden pollution is still pollution.
"We still have all those emissions and again, at multitudes of scale," Bowman said.
And a large new pollution source, like data centers, makes it easier for the city's emissions to slide above federal goals. If that happens, it makes it harder for the city to use federal funds for things like roads and public transit.
Generator emissions are another area where local regulators can step in. In Colorado, data centers are prohibited from using their generators except during power outages or routine tests to ensure they're in working order. That way, a data center operator can't kick on its generators during peak hours of the summer just to save itself from a big electricity bill.
Oklahoma lawmakers passed a state law this year to allow businesses to generate their own electricity from natural gas "behind the meter." But Bowman pointed out that even in places where it's allowed, most data centers don't opt for off-the-grid solutions, according to an analysis from Wood Mackenzie.
"Their demand can vary from minute to minute, and this fluctuating demand is better suited for grid connections than the complex engineering situation of owning and operating your own power plants and footing all the costs for those as well," Bowman said.
How do you move all that juice?
Being part of a larger grid comes with its own challenges. Even if the grid generates enough electricity for a data center, that power may not reach where it's needed.
Tony Burkhart is a spokesperson for Beale Infrastructure, a data center developer working on sites in Owasso and Coweta. Speaking to reporters at Coweta City Hall in October, Burkhart said he's confident the country is due for a transmission upgrade, regardless of the new influx of data centers.
"The U.S. in general is a little bit short on transmission capacity and really has not significantly invested in energy infrastructure in 20 years or more," Burkhart said. "Being able to have access to energy is directly correlated with GDP increasing."
Eldridge said OG&E should be able to accommodate the necessary transmission with enough time.
"If multiple hyperscale data centers all use an interconnect through the same substation, it may take us a little bit of time to upgrade the substation to ensure that all those users can be served," Eldridge said. "It's something that I think has to be studied and considered and balanced, but certainly there's a pathway to service here and something that we try to work with."
The regional electric grid Oklahoma is part of is already anticipating higher demand just from day-to-day use over the coming years. Bowman said utilities are also planning for "climate weirding," such as extended periods of drought and high temperatures.
"They've got a good idea of what the metro area is going to need under lots of different scenarios," Bowman said. "However, I don't know that a scenario where we have five hyperscale data centers come to town — I don't know that that was really in anybody's cards."
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