Moosic Borough Council will consider a comprehensive ordinance Monday to regulate and restrict the data center industry, including barring facilities from using their backup generators to support the electric grid.\n<\/p>\n
With close to 100 data centers proposed throughout Lackawanna County across more than a dozen projects, communities have spent more than a year crafting and adopting zoning amendments that define and regulate data centers. As lengthy hearings and applications from developers reveal more insight<\/a> into the industry, local zoning ordinances required to govern data centers have become increasingly nuanced. On Monday at 7 p.m., Moosic council will meet at the Borough Building, 715 Main St., to consider its own restrictions on the industry, according to a public notice published July 31 in The Times-Tribune.\n<\/p>\n The 18-page document<\/a> would amend Moosic\u2019s zoning ordinance to recognize \u201ccomputer data centers and high-density computing facilities\u201d as special exceptions in the borough\u2019s manufacturing zones. As special exceptions, developers would be required to adhere to a slew of restrictions and present their projects to the Moosic Zoning Hearing Board for consideration, allowing impacted residents to participate in the hearing and cross-examine data center representatives.<\/p>\n Those zones encompass: Moosic\u2019s northern tier near the Scranton border by Davis Street, the bottom of Rocky Glen Road, and the site of the former DuPont or Goex gunpowder plant on Moosic\u2019s southern border near the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton International Airport. The northernmost site is already slated for a warehouse<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n Municipalities in Pennsylvania are required to allow for every lawful land use somewhere within their boundaries, and failing to do so exposes a community to legal challenges over exclusionary zoning.<\/p>\n In Moosic, the proposed legislation represents nearly a year of work, beginning with council researching the industry in September 2025, according to council President Marilyn French. The ordinance was reviewed at multiple public meetings, including a public hearing last month, as well as by both the Moosic Planning Commission and Lackawanna County Regional Planning Commission, according to French.<\/p>\n Moosic has not received any applications for data centers, she said in a text Friday.\n<\/p>\n The borough\u2019s proposed ordinance addresses the evolving concerns surrounding data centers by explicitly prohibiting them from using backup generators for peak shaving or to supply power to the grid. The ordinance restricts generators to power outages and routine maintenance and testing, capped at 100 hours annually. Testing and maintenance would be limited to weekdays from 8 a.m. through 5 p.m.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n While early concerns focused more on data centers\u2019 cooling equipment and the noise it produces, the use of large arrays of backup diesel generators has emerged as a central concern<\/a> due to their noise and emissions, especially in Archbald Borough<\/a>. Compounding those worries, the U.S. Department of Energy and PJM Interconnection \u2014 the country\u2019s largest grid operator serving Pennsylvania, a dozen other states and Washington, D.C.,\u2014 are increasingly eyeing data centers\u2019 backup generators as a means of supplementing the electric grid during the hottest summer weather to avoid power outages across the grid.<\/p>\n