ORLANDO, Fla. — On July 1, many new laws become effective across Florida, including one focusing on protecting taxpayers and the environment from data centers.
Senate Bill 484 was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May and protects ratepayers by preventing utilities from shifting the cost of serving large-scale data centers onto small business and residential customers.
The legislation defines a large-scale data center as a “single location, with a data center on site, that has an anticipated monthly peak load of 50 megawatts or more.”
The law also empowers local communities by allowing them to set stricter standards or deny projects to ensure data centers are properly regulated.
Senate Bill 484 increases security by requiring public disclosure of data center development deals. According to the legislation, the law also prohibits data centers from being owned or controlled by “foreign countries of concern.”
By creating a permit process dedicated to large data centers, the law offers environmental and infrastructure standards, as well.
Lake County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini told Spectrum News last week that some of his concerns are how data center construction would take up rural land and drain water resources. The county passed a moratorium on data centers last week.
“There’s no actual permanent economic gain for this county, so it’s like a sugar high economic project where you get a few temporary construction jobs but you have a permanent drain on resources and the erasure of rural lands, which I’m opposed to here in Lake County,” he said.
On the other hand, cities like Orlando are welcoming data center hubs, like one that will open along I-4. The CEO of HostDime, the company building it, says the facility is expected to be online by next month.