Data centers are becoming one of the biggest flashpoints in Minnesota local government, and University of Minnesota researchers are stepping in to help cities sort fact from developer pitch. The facilities, the physical backbone of the 'cloud,' can pull as much electricity as a small city, and officials in places like Byron, Lewiston and Stewartville are trying to figure out what that means for them before a developer shows up asking for zoning approval.
The effort is a joint project of the University of Minnesota Law School, the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota Extension and the Freshwater Society, working directly with Byron, Lewiston and Stewartville. Humphrey School assistant professor Elise Harrington is the project's principal investigator, and Minnesota Law professor James Coleman, who studies energy law, is also involved. The project is funded by a grant from the University's Institute on the Environment.
This summer the team plans to launch a toolkit for city administrators. Harrington has said the project isn't meant to push cities toward a yes or no, but to make sure local leaders are prepared to make an informed call for their own community.
The stakes are already visible nearby. Pine Island has a paused Google and Ryan Companies data center project on its north side following a judge's ruling, and Cannon Falls' city council approved a land use and development agreement for a data center earlier this year. A separate University of Minnesota Extension effort, backed by a $200,000 grant, ran three workshops with city administrators from those communities to nail down the data-driven questions cities most need answered, with results expected in August or September. Andi Sutton, executive director of southeast regional sustainable development partnerships at Extension, and Carrie Jennings, research and policy director at Freshwater and an adjunct U of M faculty member, are leading that piece.
Byron administrator Al Roder summed up the position a lot of small cities are in: 'It isn't that we've seen anything ... The question that I keep coming back to is: What are the facts?' Lewiston administrator Ragini Varma said much of the public pushback against data centers comes from residents lacking full information, and Jennings has urged officials to 'think carefully about what those numbers are' when developers cite water and electricity figures. Early worries centered on water use for cooling, but developers are increasingly shifting to air-cooling systems, which trade water demand for even bigger electricity draws — the kind of tradeoff the UMN toolkit is meant to help cities weigh with real data instead of a sales pitch.