Image Credit: Knox County Commission & Canva
Tennessee Conservative News Staff –
One Knox County Commissioner is trying to have regulations in place for data centers before they arrive.
Commissioner Adam Thompson says that, after seeing areas across the country scrambling to respond, Knox County officials want to be proactive rather than reactive.
The Commission is currently working to come up with policies related to AI processing and cryptocurrency centers. Included in those regulations would be a stipulation that would not allow the centers to use public water systems or regular power grids as a part of their operation.
“Our main objective here is to make sure that we don’t have an outside entity come in that’s going to do harm, put more burden on not just taxpayers, but our utility subscribers…we want to make sure that everybody’s taken care of,” Thompson told WVLT.
Thompson also noted that they wanted to protect land, specifically in rural areas, from being disrupted by data centers.
The proposed plans will be reviewed by the Knoxville-Knox Planning Commission for suggested changes before returning to the County Commission.
Earlier this month, Governor Bill Lee signed a new law that requires data centers to be self-funding. The law was designed to prevent consumers from being charged more by power companies who are subsidizing the repair costs, etc. of the data centers.
The legislation prohibits the costs associated with building a new data center or upgrading electrical infrastructure of a center from being absorbed or subsidized by a municipal or electric utility except in limited circumstances. Should upgrades also benefit ratepayers, utilities may then share the cost with a data center.
