A one-year ban on AI data centers unanimously passed the City Council.
Councilman Charles Bare’s proposed temporary moratorium was approved in a 7-0 vote at the July 16 council meeting.
“I don’t think there needs to be a data center in the city of Pensacola,” Bare told the News Journal earlier this month. “I just don’t think it’s the best use of available property that’s out there and has obvious potential impacts on the environment, water usage and power. It doesn’t provide a lot of jobs, so I just don’t think it’s something we need within the city.”
The moratorium bans the construction or renovation of any building into a data center that would draw more than 50 megawatts. One megawatt can power between 600 to 1,000 homes.
A new state law passed this year aimed at regulating data centers gives local government greater power to set rules for “large-load” utility customers who draw more than 50 megawatts in a single location.
Some members of the public who have been advocating for a ban on data centers said they believed 50 megawatts was still too high, and that many data centers that could cause issues for residents are less than 50 megawatts.
Council President Allison Patton said she was reluctant to approve it because they didn’t know what other businesses it could affect.
Bare argued that the measure was “low-hanging fruit” that the Legislature had approved cities setting limits for, and no hospital or other business in Pensacola uses anywhere near 50 megawatts.
Large business data centers like the kinds used at hospitals or banks are often much less than 50 megawatts. However, newer “hyperscale” data centers built to run and train new artificial intelligence models can be 100 megawatts.
Concerns over data centers erupted locally earlier this year with the news that FloridaWest had talked with a company that had expressed interest in a “smaller” data center in the northern area of the county. FloridaWest officials said those talks never went anywhere and they aren’t in any active negotiations.
Despite that, a large group has rallied at all local government meetings to call for a ban on AI data centers. Escambia County commissioners said they’re open to a ban on data centers, and Santa Rosa County held the first of two public hearings on July 9 on a measure that’s nearly identical to the one Bare proposed for Pensacola.
The July 16 vote is the first of two required votes to make the ban official.
Jim Little is the City Government Accountability Reporter for the Pensacola News Journal. If you have a news tip, please send it to jwlittle@pnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola approves one-year ban on AI data centers
Reporting by Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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By Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal | USA TODAY Network
