Michiganders are broadly against data centers, especially when they’re proposed near their residence.

Their concerns about electricity and water use are compounded by a general feeling that large tech companies control too much of their lives. Residents have gotten particularly loud about those problems at town hall meetings, including at one Saline Township meeting.

Despite local apprehension, Saline is now slated to host one of the largest data centers in the country.

At this point, 52 localities in Michigan have passed data center moratoriums.

But are concerns about hyper-scale data centers overblown? And, are there more benefits that townships aren’t fully appreciating?

Eric Paul Dennis is the infrastructure research associate for the Citizens Research Council. A new report he did on data centers says their benefits often actually outweigh the costs.

“You cannot discount the idea that data centers can increase electricity rates, but it’s actually not that common and quite minimal,” says Dennis. “Regulatory agencies have now kind of gotten ahead of this and I don’t think it’s going to be as much of a concern for the future.”

The Metro‘s Sam Corey spoke with Dennis about why he thinks data center projects sometimes offer more benefits than drawbacks.

After the two spoke, electricity rates increased in Henrico County, Virginia — which is home to 37 data centers. Dominion Energy says it increased the rates due to inflation, rising fuel costs, the cost of grid equipment, and the need to make more grid investments.

The Metro contacted Dennis about the rate increase. He said that while data centers “have caused headaches for grid managers” in Virginia, the problems are not necessarily “critical or unavoidable.” He says, in fact, “We appear to be managing the risks and even benefiting from the addition of data centers on the grid.”

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

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