Seattle mayor floats moratorium on new data centers in city limits

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson addressed concerns about a potential wave of new data centers in the city and raised the possibility of a moratorium, citing economic and environmental issues.

Wilson’s public statement Saturday followed a Seattle Times report April 10 that four companies have approached Seattle City Light about building five large-scale data centers with a combined peak demand of 369 megawatts, equal to roughly a third of Seattle’s average daily power consumption. 

“I share community concerns about environmental justice, economic resilience, and impacts of increased costs for Seattle rate payers,” Wilson wrote on Facebook. “That’s why my team is working closely with Seattle City Light, City Council and stakeholders to identify a range of long-term policy approaches, including exploring a moratorium on siting new centers.”

Seattle already has about 30 data centers, but they’re relatively small. The proposed facilities would be the first at this scale in the city and could consume nearly 10 times more power than the existing ones at full capacity, according to the Seattle Times report.

The world’s biggest tech companies, including hometown tech giants Microsoft and Amazon, have been spending hundreds of billions of dollars building data centers to scale up artificial intelligence.

Those facilities have historically gone up in rural areas, but power availability has grown scarce in many markets, driving developers to look at cities with their own utility resources. 

It’s not clear who the proposed data centers would be built for. Seattle City Light hasn’t disclosed the companies involved or proposed locations due to nondisclosure agreements.

Seattle City Light is rewriting its contract terms for large-load customers and plans to require data center operators to secure their own power generation and pay for infrastructure upgrades rather than passing costs to ratepayers. The companies are expected to decide in the next two to three months whether to formally apply for service.

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