County Steering Committee Begins Work On Data Center Planning
After putting a moratorium in place on data centers and battery storage facilities, the Mountrail County Land Development Code Committee held their first meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 19, as they work on how to move forward with a conditional use policy that will address the concerns along with the possibility of that type of development.
As they move forward this was the first meeting with an initial draft meeting tentatively set for February of 2025, a revised draft meeting in May, and a final draft of the policy meeting in August. If they maintain that schedule, that would send the policy to planning and zoning in September and October and then to the county commissioners in October and November.
Scott Harmstead of SRF Consulting was there to discuss planning for data centers. A data center is a facility that processes, manages and stores data. These facilities all have some differences with Harmstead saying that design has a huge impact. These industrial use facilities vary in sizes, but the demand for them is projected to double through 2030.
They come in different types including cloud which is hosted off-premises for companies like Amazon’s AWS, Microsoft’s Azure and Google. They can be co-located where companies rent space in the facility. They can also be built, owned and operated by an enterprise company. There are also others that are bitcoin miners dedicated to cryptocurrency.
One thing they have in common is infrastructure needs. They need access to transmission lines and substations with the energy draw similar to that used to power larger cities. They have various options for cooling systems, some that use more energy and others that use more water.
Harmstead noted that there are planning considerations including the potential nuisances, utility impacts, space need, building and site designs, transportation and aesthetics. The one nuisance that has been in the news has been noise with Harmstead noting that this has to do with design. The cooling systems and backup generators provide chronic noise, while the server noise levels can be as high as 90 dB or louder. There are methods to mitigate the external noises.
SRF has been doing some case studies to help draft the requirements that Mountrail County would put in place for conditional use permits.
This meeting was also designed to gather input and concerns from those attending, whether in person or virtually.
Committee chairman Charlie Sorenson noted that he had been hearing from constituents. Their concerns included noise, power use and a way to determine and track the ownership of these facilities.
Hunter Andes of Plaza spoke about the requirements for notification of landowners. He felt the notification and approval distance should be increased, giving locals more of a voice when voting on data centers.