Loudon County is looking to take some preemptive measures against AI data centers, as signaled by the recommendation to impose a ban on the facilities from local leaders.
The Loudon County Regional Planning Commission saw eight votes in favor of reccomendig a six month moratorium on the facilities at their June 9 meeting following previous discourse around the topic in the weeks prior. The proposal was heard by the Loudon County Commission the following Monday, and is set to come to a vote on June 29.
The potential moratorium follows conversation spanning several weeks, with the first rumblings of regulation coming from the May 18 County Commission workshop. Though not formally listed on the agenda, Commissioner Van Shaver took a few minutes at the end of the session to address the issue and express an intent to establish some sort of ban in order to properly prepare for future zoning regulation. Shaver likened the trend to the previous issues with Bitcoin mining the county faced in 2022, when a similar ban was placed on those facilities that summer. With the language in the previous resolution geared toward the details of that specific tech trend, Shaver stressed that he wanted to make sure they had a firm grasp of the current situation before moving forward.
“We have got to protect this area from these sorts of things,” Shaver said at the May 18 workshop. “Because they’re coming, and they’re getting closer to us all the time.”
Shaver also stated that while county officials seem eager to get a firm grasp on the situation surrounding these data centers, he wasn’t placing as much faith in its surrounding municipalities to share the same mindset, stating that “the cities are way more susceptible to letting something like this happen than the county ever would.”
Some potential solutions to the looming issue were suggested by fellow commissioners should these data centers begin to appear in Loudon County, such as tighter zoning restrictions and more stringent qualifications regarding where exactly these buildings could be located in relation to densely populated or vegetative areas. Energy expenditure was also expressed as a key concern by several commissioners.
But preemptive and reactionary caution around data centers isn’t localized to Loudon County. Facilities like this have begun to pop up all over the country and especially in Tennessee, where lawmakers at the state level have begun to listen to recent pushback from constituents regarding the facilities and their proximity to both urban and suburban hubs across the state. On May 7, Governor Bill Lee signed a bill into law that would limit the financial burden these centers can place on local municipalities and the utility boards that service them. In a release to the press, Russell stated that these facilities can only share the cost of operations when there is a clear shared benefit for the city that could help pay for them, and when rates will not increase for taxpayers.
“As data center development expands across the country, I’ve heard concerns from residents about the impacts these facilities can have on local communities and I share many of those concerns,” Russell said. “While I do not support a data center in Loudon or Monroe counties, Tennessee should have clear safeguards in place wherever they are developed. This law helps ensure utility customers are not left paying for related infrastructure costs.”
In February, the Tennesse Valley Authority addressed their intent to stabalize rates for paying customers amidst rising costs of data centers and the potential for power operations to surge with their implementation.
Currently, Loudon County’s potential moratorium on data centers is set to expire after six months, with an option to extend that deadline an additional six months if both Planning and County Commissioners decide that extra time is needed to assess zoning policies surrounding the facilities.
