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On Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled state legislature in Maine passed a ban on large data centers. It wasn\u2019t exactly close. The state\u2019s House passed it 79-62, and the Senate passed it 21-13\u2014along party lines with a few exceptions, according to the Wall Street Journal. Governor Janet Mills\u2019 signature is still needed before it becomes law, and the Journal says\u00a0she has signaled interest in signing such a ban under certain circumstances.<\/p>\n
This ban passed in spite of\u2014or perhaps because of\u2014relatively low data center activity in Maine. Business Insider maps likely data centers construction by tracking permit requests for certain generators, and Maine appears to only have two such projects. However, data center demand drives up home energy costs, and the website Electric Choice ranks Maine fourth highest in electricity prices.<\/p>\n
Insider also notes that similar legislative efforts have stalled or failed outright in Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Plenty of other cities and states are still considering laws like this one.<\/p>\n
Maine\u2019s ban has frequently been described as a ban on \u201clarge\u201d data centers, but the threshold is 20 megawatts, which is actually pretty low, and effectively blocks construction of what is commonly known as an AI data center.\u00a0<\/span>According to the Regional Plan Association, while data centers used about two megawatts of electricity when the concept of a data center was new, the average contemporary data center uses about 40 megawatts. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Maine\u2019s bill places a moratorium on construction until November of 2027, and also creates a council whose job will be to evaluate the cost of data centers on the people of Maine.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n