Why Should Delaware Care?
After hearing concerns from residents about a proposed data center near Delaware City, a local lawmaker is taking action. If enacted, these regulations would impose restrictions on future data center development in New Castle County.
The New Castle County Council is lining up new legislation they hope could mitigate resident-feared impacts from a massive proposed data center near Delaware City, although it may be too late for the first part of the project.
On Monday, County Councilman Dave Carter announced draft legislation that would put restrictions on how data centers could operate and how they could be designed. He will formally introduce the legislation at the council’s special meeting at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 5.
Despite Carter’s forthcoming proposal, he told Spotlight Delaware that the legislation may only apply to the second phase of the 6 million-square-foot Delaware City project, because the developer, Starwood Digital Ventures, could submit a formal land development application for the first phase before new regulations are passed.
But Carter said he hopes Starwood would follow these regulations anyway.
“I think that our criteria are clear and that any responsible developer would go out of their way, if they really want to do business and grow anywhere else in Delaware, to work with us to implement them,” he said.
This announcement comes after Delaware House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown called on the county last week to deny the data center plan at a town hall meeting.
But the first phase of the plan is currently allowed “by right,” meaning the county cannot legally deny it if it meets all the requirements.
Most people who spoke during the meeting were concerned about the 1.2 gigawatts of electricity the data center could use every hour, whether its jobs would support unions and its environmental impact.
What’s in the legislation?
Carter said he based his proposal on the recent regulations passed in Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” the largest concentration of data centers in the world.
If Carter’s regulations pass, data centers would need to be located at least 1,000 feet from residential zones, schools, and daycare centers. They would also need to include at least an 8-foot berm, or hill, to obscure the building and muffle any noise from it.
The legislation imposes a 55-decibel noise limit on data centers and prevents them from shining light onto other properties.
Carter’s proposal also bans open-loop cooling systems – which continuously use new water sources to cool the servers in data centers – to lessen the amount of water they would use. Open-loop cooling systems would only be allowed if reclaimed water from sewage treatment plants is used.
Energy efficiency certifications and new safety standards for generators also are included in the proposal. If passed, developers would be required to coordinate with utility companies to show there is enough energy to supply their project. If there is not enough energy to meet a project’s demand, data centers would need to generate their own.
Lastly, data centers would only be permitted in heavy industry and industrial zoning districts. Each newly proposed data center would be subject to a special use process, which requires more county oversight.
What comes next?
Four other county council members signed onto Carter’s legislation — Brandon Toole, Dee Durham, John Cartier and Kevin Caneco, who represents the area where the data center would be located — making five members of the 12-member council co-sponsors of the proposal.
Even with this level of support, the process to approve the legislation will likely take several months, Carter said. And if Starwood submits a preliminary plan for the first phase of the project to the county before then, they would not need to follow the new legislation.
Carter said phase one of the plan could potentially be subject to more oversight if it is considered heavy industry. Current county ordinances classify data centers as “light industry,” but Carter said those categories were from a different time.
“These are not the data centers that we’ve seen in the past,” Carter said. “These are orders of magnitude larger, orders of magnitude more energy requirements, orders of magnitude more impact.”
Carter said he will argue that Starwood’s data center should be classified as heavy industry once the company submits a preliminary plan and it is publicly reviewed through the county Planning Commission, regardless of where his legislation stands.
Starwood CEO Anthony Balestrieri said at the recent town hall that he does not know when the company will submit preliminary plans for the project to the county.
Neither representatives from Starwood nor PBF Energy, which owns the land slated to house the Delaware City data center, responded to multiple requests for comment on Tuesday.
Get Involved
The public is welcome to attend and comment on the proposed legislation at a special meeting of the New Castle County Council at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 5. The council meets at the City / County Building, located at 800 N. French St. in Wilmington. To watch the meeting remotely, click here.
