Six solar farm projects are being vetted to determine if they can move forward in Tallahassee, a move one commissioners says could create the infrastructure to power massive data centers in the state capital.
With the surge in artificial intelligence and cloud computing, data centers across the country are sparking controversy as more communities are pushing back on potential impacts, largely surrounding water and energy consumption and environmental impacts.
In Jackson County, about an hour away, residents pushed back on a proposal to bring a solar farm or battery storage facility to that rural county. County commissioners ultimately decided to place a one-year moratorium on data centers at their May 26 meeting.
Franklin County followed suit on June 3 with a ban on data centers. After weighing the pros and cons of the facilities, commissioners unanimously voted for a one-year moratorium.
While no plans have emerged for a data center in Tallahassee, city officials are conducting a feasibility study and economic analysis on the solar farm projects that were vetted out of a pool of about two dozen proposals.
Tallahassee Assistant City Manager Michael Ohlsen said the feasibility study stage should be completed by this summer.
“The full suite of technical analysis, to include System Impact Studies and Facility Studies, is anticipated to wrap up before the end of the year,” Ohlsen said in an email to the Tallahassee Democrat.
“Once the facility studies are completed, the city will transition to contract negotiations with the projects deemed viable at that stage.”
Here are the proposals, based on city records:
Matlow raises questions about solar farm projects, claiming they’re a pathway to AI data centers
When asked whether the solar farm projects provide infrastructure to enable a large-scale data center to be built in Tallahassee, Ohlsen said, “No.”
But, some officials aren’t convinced that’s the case.
Tallahassee City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow, who’s running for mayor, made a campaign talking point in a text message about how “the groundwork is being laid to be able to power an AI Data Center near Tallahassee.” He also posted a video proposing a moratorium that he says would ensure that “renewable energy serves the people that live here and not giant corporations.”
In an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat, Matlow said he “caught wind” of private-sector interest about a month or two ago to bring a data center to the capital but declined to go into details about how he heard about it.
Matlow, who said he’s not in favor of a data center in the city limits, said such facilities around the country are “way larger than anything we’ve ever seen before.”
He attempted to draw attention to the solar farm proposals at the April 15 meeting when he pulled an item from consent for discussion. The item, which had a $500,000 price tag, gave the city manager the authority to proceed with contract negotiations with utility providers following a feasibility study’s findings.
“It was kind of giving the city manager authority to move forward with it without ever bringing it back to the City Commission,” Matlow said. “I thought that was a problem because we’re talking solar on a scale of three times larger than what we have at the airport.”
The solar farm at the Bobby Bowden Tallahassee International Airport is roughly 450 acres, for 60-plus megawatts of power.
“The state law in Florida (SB 484) that the Legislature just passed (says) basically if these data centers are coming to a community, they have to be able to provide for their own power without impacting the rates of current utility holders,” Matlow said.
At the April 15 meeting, city commissioners in a 3-2 vote supported the staff recommendation to move forward with the study and allow the city manager or his designee to conduct negotiations related to solar farms.
Matlow told the Democrat now is the time to discuss whether this is something residents want to see move forward. He plans to release his recommendations in the coming weeks on how he thinks this should be addressed.
“That’s making sure our utility doesn’t enter into power purchase agreements with large-scale AI data centers and then updating our land use and development code to specifically define what a data center is, and limit where you’re able to build them,” Matlow said.
Contact Economic Development Reporter TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com and follow @TaMarynWaters on X.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee solar farm projects spark AI data center fears
Reporting by TaMaryn Waters, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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By TaMaryn Waters, Tallahassee Democrat | USA TODAY Network
