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Community Opposition

Every GridPermit post tagged “Community Opposition.” Back to the full blog.

October 24, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Kentucky Power Wants to Build a New Gas Plant for a Data Center That's Still Just a Filing. It's Already Promising $100 Million Back to Everyone Else's Heating Bill.

Kentucky Power hasn't broken ground on the 760-megawatt gas plant a TeraWulf data campus needs. It's already promising residential customers $25 a month in winter bill credits for a decade, if regulators approve the whole package.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 23, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Georgia Power's Record OpenAI Deal Got Real New Ratepayer Protections After Public Pressure. The Contract That Spells Them Out Is Entirely Blacked Out.

Georgia Power raised its promised bill relief to $180 a year after advocates objected to OpenAI's $20 billion data center deal. The contract explaining how is fully redacted, and a sitting U.S. senator just called for a moratorium.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 21, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Minnesota Judge Halted Google's Data Center in May. The State's Attorney General Says the Real Cost Is Still Redacted.

Xcel says Google's Pine Island data center deal saves other customers $1.1 billion. Minnesota's attorney general says the number behind that claim is blacked out, and his own read of it comes out nearly a billion dollars negative.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 21, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Platte County, Wyoming Rezoned 5,344 Acres for a $26 Billion Data Center. The Commissioners Made Sure a Vote Wasn't the Same as a Permit.

Platte County commissioners unanimously zoned 5,344 acres of ranchland for a $26 billion data center campus -- then attached four conditions that keep the real decision for later.

Zoning & EntitlementCommunity OppositionFinancing & Investment
October 20, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

NiSource Promises Microsoft's Data Center Won't Raise Anyone's Bill. LaPorte County Already Decided Not to Take That on Faith.

NiSource says its new 20-year Microsoft power deal will save Indiana ratepayers $140 a year. LaPorte County didn't wait to find out -- it passed its own rules first.

Power & UtilityFinancing & InvestmentCommunity Opposition
October 20, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Federal Judge Dismissed DC Blox's Lawsuit Against Nashville. The City's Own Zoning Staff Say Its Data Center Permits Are Vested Anyway.

Nashville is trying to seize DC Blox's zoo-adjacent data center site by eminent domain even though the city's own zoning administrator says the project's permits are already vested under state law.

Zoning & EntitlementCommunity OppositionPolicy
October 19, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

San Francisco and Oakland Joined 300-Plus Cities Trying to Stop Data Centers This Week. By One Count, Only Three of Those Fights Have Actually Worked.

An analyst tracking 300-plus local data center restrictions found only three projects nationally actually delayed by them -- about 2.3 gigawatts out of roughly 20. A rival tracker puts the real toll many times higher.

PolicyCommunity OppositionCommercial Readiness
October 19, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Digital Realty Is Offering Every Household in a Kansas Town $1,000 a Year. Four Hundred Residents Signed a Petition Anyway.

Digital Realty's second De Soto, Kansas campus comes with a $20 million household fund, a 600-megawatt power deal the company is paying for itself, and a petition asking for a vote on the whole thing.

Community OppositionPower & UtilityFinancing & Investment
October 18, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Google Turned Down a 20-Year Tax Break in Rural Kansas. Six Weeks Later, It Still Hasn't Signed the Deal.

Barber County, Kansas, population 4,000, talked Google out of a tax exemption and into $320 million over 20 years. The county's own paperwork still says the deal isn't signed.

Financing & InvestmentCommunity OppositionWater Rights
October 18, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Meta Is Putting $200 Million Into Richland Parish's Schools and Roads. Entergy's Own CEO Just Revealed, by Accident, How Much Power the Data Center Behind It Actually Draws.

Meta is pledging $200 million for Richland Parish schools and roads. Mid-hearing, Entergy's own CEO let slip the real number behind it: four times New Orleans' peak power, continuously -- kept confidential until then.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 17, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Pennsylvania Township Just Got $120 Million From Two Data Centers to Build a Police and Fire Headquarters. Residents Wanted to Read the Deal First. Commissioners Voted Anyway.

Swatara Township, PA locked in $120.3 million from two Corscale data centers for a new police and fire headquarters -- residents asked for a week to review the agreement first, and commissioners voted it through anyway.

Zoning & EntitlementCommunity OppositionPower & Utility
October 17, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Kelly Scott's Cattle Farm Sits 650 Yards From Wisconsin's Next Gas Plant. The Commission Approved It Anyway.

Wisconsin approved two billion-dollar gas plants for Microsoft and Oracle's data centers over 82-88% hearing opposition, with a signed Microsoft contract still carrying language regulators already ordered removed.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 16, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Meta's $15 Billion Kentucky Data Center Comes With $115 Million for Water Infrastructure the County Already Needed. Twenty-Eight Mobile-Home Households Have 90 Days to Find Somewhere Else to Live.

Meta hid behind NDAs in rural Kentucky for more than a year. The $115 million water deal it revealed on October 13th is real, and so is the 90-day clock now running on 28 mobile-home families next door.

Zoning & EntitlementWater RightsCommunity Opposition
October 15, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Indiana's New Data-Center Cost Law Just Passed Its First Test. The State's Largest Utility Still Gets to Bill Everyone Else for $74 Million of It.

Indiana's first case under its new data-center cost law closed October 7th. Google clears the 80% floor by a wide margin — but $74 million of the build still lands in AES Indiana's general rate base.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 13, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A $2.8 Billion Data Center Beat Its Lawsuit in Spartanburg County. The Power Plant Behind It Never Went Before the Board That Reviews Power Plants.

South Carolina ruled Valara's 11-turbine gas plant isn't a "utility facility," so the one board that vets big power plants never saw it. A judge just threw out neighbors' last lawsuit over the project.

Power & UtilityZoning & EntitlementCommunity Opposition
October 13, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Kokomo's Mayor Turned Down a Tax Break to Land a Data Center. OpenAI and the Electricians' Union Are Betting the Deal Travels.

Kokomo offered a data center zero tax abatement and still landed a $1.3 billion campus. Six other states are watching whether that deal, not a ban, is what actually calms the backlash.

PolicyCommunity OppositionCommercial Readiness
October 10, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

St. Louis Wrote a Data Center Penalty Clause With Real Teeth. The Developer Is Suing to Pull Them.

TerraWatt's $3 billion Armory data center comes with $15.7 million in enforceable penalties if its tax-revenue promise falls short. Its own leadership is now suing to strike the conditions that make the penalty stick.

Zoning & EntitlementCommunity OppositionCommercial Readiness
October 10, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Taylor, Texas Had No Legal Say Over a 664-Acre Data Center Next Door. On October 8th, It Annexed Its Way Into Getting Some.

The site sat in unincorporated Williamson County, outside Taylor's zoning reach entirely. The city annexed it anyway on October 8th — and a 1,400-signature petition to stop the project just got ruled off the ballot.

Zoning & EntitlementWater RightsCommunity Opposition
October 9, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Pennsylvania Coal Plant Closed in 2019. The Data Center Taking Its Place Comes With a Gas Plant Projected to Pollute More Than Any Other One in the State's Pipeline.

Shippingport, population 160, just landed a $10 billion AI campus and 3,000 construction jobs. The dedicated gas plant built to power it is projected to out-emit every other one in Pennsylvania's data-center pipeline, including a bigger plant.

Power & UtilityFinancing & InvestmentCommunity Opposition
October 4, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Memphis Spent xAI's Tax Money on Home Repairs. On October 6th, It Votes on Whether to Pause the Next One.

Memphis's zoning code has no category for a hyperscale data center, so xAI's Colossus got built as ordinary industrial use. On October 6th, the City Council takes a final vote on a 12-month moratorium meant to fix that gap — at the same meeting it spends $3.2 million in tax revenue xAI already generated.

Zoning & EntitlementCommunity OppositionPower & Utility
October 3, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Amazon Just Promised $1 Billion to Data Center Towns. It Also Just Permitted the Country's Single Largest Carbon Polluter to Power One of Them.

AWS's October 2nd "Built Together" program ends non-disclosure agreements with local governments and pledges communities won't see higher electricity bills. The same week, critics pointed back at a Pecos County, Texas gas plant Amazon is financing — permitted to emit 33 million tons of CO2 a year, more than any other power plant in the country.

PolicyCommunity OppositionPower & Utility
October 2, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Valar Atomics Wants to Build 456 Nuclear Reactors in a Utah Coal Town. The NRC Hasn't Licensed One Yet.

Project Beehive would lease more than 9,000 acres of Carbon County, Utah to a startup proposing 456 helium-cooled microreactors generating 9.6 gigawatts — nearly matching the state's entire peak grid capacity. Valar Atomics has raised more than $1.5 billion since 2023. Its reactor design has not cleared the one agency that can actually let it operate.

Power & UtilityZoning & EntitlementCommunity Opposition
September 30, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

New York Already Has a Statewide Data Center Moratorium. Buffalo Just Voted for a Longer One of Its Own.

Governor Hochul's one-year pause on data center permits is two and a half months old. On September 30th, Buffalo's Common Council voted for a two-year local moratorium on top of it — proof a state-level pause doesn't settle anything at the municipal level.

Zoning & EntitlementPolicyCommunity Opposition