Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed 7 bills intended to give California communities more information about the impact of proposed data centers.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed “seven bills aimed at giving communities more information about proposed data centers’ energy, water, workforce and land use to help weigh their economic costs and benefits” on Sept. 21, Robyn Griggs Lawrence writes for Smart Cities Dive. According to Data Center Map, California has 296 data centers.
One bill commands the California Public Utilities Commission to scrutinize data centers’ energy use and make sure they pay for transmission and distribution upgrades, and two more make it a requirement for “data centers to pay all infrastructure upgrade and generation costs, bear a larger share of wildfire mitigation and liability costs, and undergo environmental review,” Smart Cities Dive reports. Another bill requires data centers to report their energy consumption to the California Energy Commission every month.
Two more bills require potential data center developers to create a water scarcity plan and complete a water supply assessment while in the permitting phase. Another incentivizes data centers to use “onsite clean energy resources,” Smart Cities Dive reports.
Read the full story: Cities get more say in data center development under new California laws
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