By admin 
A South Carolina county has pressed pause on new data center construction, as the national debate over the facilities continues.
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Fairfield County Council approved a 12-month moratorium on data centers at its Aug. 10 meeting, becoming the second Midlands county to halt new construction as residents have expressed concern about what the growth of data centers could mean to their communities and their power bills.
An ordinance setting the moratorium passed its second of three readings last week. A public hearing for Fairfield residents to sound off on the idea is set for Aug. 31, with final reading scheduled for Sept. 14.
The ordinance prohibits the construction of data centers on county-owned property and the sale of county property for new data centers. During the pause, staff will research more restrictions on data centers that the county north of Columbia could also adopt, the county said in a media release.
“Over the coming months, Fairfield County Administration and County Council will conduct additional research and community engagement to better understand the potential impacts of data centers on Fairfield County,” the news release said. “Planned activities include citizen town halls, County Council work sessions with data center experts, and visits to existing data center facilities.”
The decision comes after neighboring Newberry County adopted a similar moratorium in June, which came following a proposal for a data center to be built in a commerce park in Prosperity. But residents packed the Newberry Opera House to speak out against the plan, expressing fear of what construction would do to the county’s rural character.
Eight other counties around the state have similar short-term bans or are in the process of considering one. In the Midlands, Lexington County Council has discussed tightening its rules locally on potential future data center construction in the county.
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Data centers store the networked computers, servers and data storage infrastructure that can store and process large amounts of digital information. The centers are used for hosting websites and cloud computing, but they have become associated with powering artificial intelligence operations as that technology has taken off.
But those uses can require a large amount of power to run so many machines and water for cooling, potentially putting a strain onto neighboring communities.
In Fairfield County, data center construction could “potentially create an unprecedented strain on Fairfield County’s essential public resources, including … the electric power grid, finite water supply, and local infrastructure,” the draft ordinance reads.
A moratorium is necessary because the county currently lacks the “regulatory framework or zoning ordinance structure” to set limits on the industry in the county of 20,000, and the county staff will use the next 12 months to find more ways to tighten those rules.
Fairfield County plans to look into the potential impacts of data centers on the county’s infrastructure, water and energy resources, land use, economic development, the environment and quality of life issues, the county said in a news release.
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