Baltimore moves closer to pausing data center construction in the city
A bill was passed that would prolong Baltimore's time without a data center via a one-year moratorium during a committee meeting on Thursday morning. It will now head to the city council for a vote.
Currently, data centers aren't banned, but the city wants to do its due diligence to have all the details before something is built.
The committee decided that a data center facility would start at 10 megawatts.
"It puts in writing the commitment to study the impacts and develop standards during that one year,"Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen said.
Baltimore and Carroll counties passed similar moratoriums on data centers in February.
Data center moratorium proposed in Baltimore
The proposed moratorium in Baltimore City comes as an investigation was called for to look into a BGE transmission line project at the Baltimore Peninsula.
Councilmembers believe the data center would be built there, and it could mean bad news for South Baltimore residents.
"Until it is made clear how Baltimore can unequivocally win from this new technology," we will not participate in a race to the bottom," Cohen said.
Maryland bill would stop data centers
In March, a bill was introduced at the state level to ban data centers.
One of the concerns of data centers is the fear of energy bills skyrocketing, something residents already feel they have no say over, despite it affecting them the most.
Supporters of the bill say data centers would be bad for the electrical grid, utility affordability, and the climate.
"You know what's so crazy, I don't even really be home like that," said Anthony Hudgins. "I work so much outside so how my bge go up and I don't even be in the crib using it. So, fix the numbers on that, run the data on that."
BGE stated that it ensures the majority of costs would go to the company building the data center.
"Feels like we don't have much control," said Mike Smith. "Can't live without electricity. can't live without gas. and nobody actually has any control to do much about it."
The city has data center meetings so residents can understand what exactly they can expect and get details.
