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A new state law touted as a way to “protect” Floridians from the impacts of giant data centers may actually be accelerating the development of giant data centers around the state.
Executives at Florida’s largest power company revealed last week that they expect to sell significantly more electricity to large data centers over the next few years — in part because the new law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in May, has made Florida a more attractive destination for the massive warehouses of computer servers needed to power artificial intelligence and other technologies.
“Having that legislation come in place in May allows for a lot of certainty for these customers that are going to make multibillion-dollar investments in the state of Florida,” Scott Bores, the president and CEO of Florida Power & Light, told investment analysis during a July 24 conference call to discuss the second-quarter earnings of parent company NextEra Energy Inc. “So I think that gives us a good foundation to build upon.”
Florida Power & Light — which expects to announce at least one major data center deal by the end of the year — now forecasts 8 gigawatts of electricity demand from “large load” customers like data centers by the year 2032. That’s a 33 percent increase from the 6 gigawatts of data center demand the company had been projecting at the beginning of the year.
One gigawatt of electricity is roughly enough to power 800,000 homes.
FPL isn’t the only company crowing about Florida’s new data center law, which passed the Republican-controlled state Legislature in March as Senate Bill 484 and focuses primarily on especially energy-intensive facilities known as “hyperscale” data centers. DeSantis signed the bill into law two months later at a ceremony featuring the slogan, “Protecting Florida Consumers.”
The day after DeSantis put his signature on Senate Bill 484, executives at another big Florida power company — Tampa Electric Co. — celebrated the news on a quarterly earnings call.
“Everyone was waiting to see whether or not the governor was going to sign Senate Bill 484, and he did that yesterday,” Archibald Collins, TECO’s president and CEO, said on the call. “That certainly makes it clearer to the data center investment community that Florida is, in fact, open for business as long as certain guidelines are respected in the process.”
The head of TECO’s parent company — Canadian energy conglomerate Emera Inc. — similarly praised DeSantis on another shareholder call a few weeks later.
“Recently, Gov. DeSantis passed legislation that sets a clear path for data center development in the state, providing clarity and ensuring fairness to all stakeholders for the development of data centers,” Emera Chairman and CEO Scott Balfour said.
The effusive industry praise for Florida’s new data center law comes after the utility companies and other data center interests successfully lobbied to weaken the legislation as it moved through Tallahassee.
For example, an initial draft of the proposal submitted to the Legislature by the Governor’s Office — which Seeking Rents obtained through a public records request — would have prohibited the construction of large data centers on agricultural land. It would have imposed minimum setbacks of at least 500 feet. And it would have prohibited tax incentives for data centers.
Another version of the bill, filed in the Florida House of Representatives would have banned non-disclosure agreements between data center developers and local governments. The House plan also would have made it very difficult to build a data center within 5 miles of any home or school — by forbidding construction unless approved by a unanimous vote of the local county commission or city council.
All of those provisions were either blocked or stripped from Senate Bill 484 before the legislation passed.
The proposal to ban data centers within five miles of a home or school was pushed, in part, by residents in Palm Beach County fighting a proposed AI data center known by the code name “Project Tango” that would purchase its electricity from FPL.
But data center lobbyists leaned hard on legislators to reject the idea.
“Banning the construction of data centers within five miles of any residential property or school unless waived by unanimous vote by the local governing body would significantly limit where data centers can be constructed while sending the signal that Florida is less than welcoming of their siting altogether,” Colton Madill, a lobbyist with the Florida Chamber of Commerce, told the House Commerce Committee during a hearing on the data center legislation.
FPL and TECO are two of the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s biggest funders
This is not to say that Senate Bill 484 accomplished nothing.
The new law requires utilities to implement rate structures that “reasonably ensure” the costs of providing power to large data centers aren’t subsidized by other ratepayers — although executives at FPL, TECO and Duke Energy Corp. have all said that the legislation simply codifies plans they already had in place.
Perhaps more importantly, the law empowers local governments to block proposed data centers by giving them explicit authority to enforce strict zoning and land-development rules.
That’s what happened in Palm Beach County, where the county commission voted 5-1 earlier this month to deny the Project Tango development application.
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But some other communities have proven more welcoming.
In tiny Fort Meade, a rural community about 50 miles southeast of Tampa, city leaders unanimously approved a more than 4 million square foot AI data center that would buy electricity from Duke. Some locals are suing to stop it.
The utility companies appear confident they can find many more Fort Meades around Florida.
“I think we all saw Project Tango in West Palm Beach. I want to reiterate, that was never part of our development expectations and shows the importance of site selection and transparency,” FPL President and CEO Scott Bores said on last week’s NextEra earnings call.
“I think there are a lot of spots in the state of Florida,” Bores added. “And we are working with those communities that are really interested and have good locations that will be the perfect host for data centers.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the utility company that will sell electricity to an AI data center proposed in Fort Meade.
I fail to see how Dee is "Protecting Florida Consumers" with SB 484, which permits NDAs -- non-disclosure agreements -- which are solely intended to keep the public OUT of the loop. Thanks for the link, J -- now your readers know that the co-sponsors of this rotten bill were Duval's righteous Clay Yarborough and Old Man Gaetz, both still pliable. (Avila, the sponsor, looks to have a district inland from the coast which will be a prime location for a data center, methinks.)
The rich will get richer under this law and the homeowner will pay for it.