(The Center Square) – The Nashville Metro Council will consider a data center moratorium as part of a called meeting on Tuesday night, and the mayor of Knoxville is also asking for a year-long pause.
At least two of Tennessee’s smaller cities and counties have recently placed holds on data centers. Cedar Hill, a small city less than an hour north of Nashville, approved a two-year moratorium. McMinnville, east of Music City, paused them for 18 months.
Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon said in a letter to Knoxville-Knox County Planning that she has concerns about the data center’s impacts on its neighbors. The mayor also indicated that she will ask the Knoxville City Council this summer to pause data center approval for a year.
“It is my understanding that Knox County has also asked Planning to prepare recommendations for data center development. Ideally, the city and county would coordinate their efforts or at minimum adopt a unified approach,” Kincannon said in her letter.
Nashville Councilwoman Courtney Johnson is calling for a moratorium in light of a proposed new data center by Atlanta-based DC Blox, which would be located near the Nashville Zoo.
Johnston said in the draft ordinance that data centers have different needs than other types of developments, including “high electrical demand, backup generators, fuel storage, battery systems, substations, transformers, cooling systems, mechanical equipment, noise, vibration, lighting, stormwater impacts, security fencing, emergency-response concerns, and continuous twenty-four-hour operations.”
The Nashville Zoo is asking for signatures on a petition against the data center.
“For the Zoo’s 3,000 animals and a neighborhood already facing economic challenges, this proposed development is especially concerning,” according to a post on the Nashville Zoo’s website. “Constant noise from cooling systems and generators, and light pollution from bright security and operational lighting can dramatically affect animal behavior, disrupting their natural photo periods and rhythms.”
Some concerns about data centers are overblown, said Debbie Jennings, senior policy manager with the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union, in an interview with The Center Square. Data centers provide additional tax revenue to a community and sometimes sign agreements for community projects.
“Moratoriums not only pause development but it also pauses any negotiation that you could make with individual developers,” Jennings said. “You’re shutting yourself out from those discussions on any specific benefits you want to get for your taxpayers such as property tax revenue and great infrastructure upgrades.”
Some objections to data centers are over a possible increase in electrical bills. Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union, said a study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows that in areas where electricity demand is the highest from industrial customers, the rates are stable or dropping by more than one cent per kilowatt hour.
“That’s actually a fair decrease even for a typical residential customer, “Sepp said. “That might be a five, even 10% savings on an electricity bill.”
Tennessee has 61 data centers, according to Data Center Map, which tracks the number of facilities in each state.
