Residents need to know the true cost of massive data center

“Today’s announcement is a major economic milestone for the entire Hartford region,” Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said in July 2018 as he neared the end of his final year in office. Seven Stars Cloud Group, Inc., later called Ideanomics, would transform the former University of Connecticut West Hartford campus “into a thriving center for research, training, and business development,” according to Malloy’s statement on that day of certainty.

The renderings of what was later dubbed Fintech Village a year later were striking. Plans like those, Malloy said, would make “our communities more livable and walkable.” A $283 million project that would create 330 jobs in a business using artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. Malloy celebrated with a $10 million loan to Ideanomics.

There is no technology center on those 58 acres at the intersection of Asylum Avenue and Trout Brook Road. The abandoned parcel turned into an overgrown mess. The Patriots remain in Foxborough. The movie studio backers built a forlorn guardhouse on 40 acres in South Windsor, but nothing else.

There’s no year-round indoor ski slope in East Hartford. The science center, not far from where the stadium for the

New England Patriots was to be built, has not revived Hartford’s economy, though The New York Times wrote in 2000 that former Gov. John G. Rowland’s administration was certain it would.

And now a proposed data center drawing electricity directly from Dominion’s Millstone nuclear power plant in

Waterford joins the queue of proposals that will transform life in Connecticut.

“Everyone wins. Ratepayers win. Labor wins. The environment wins. Connecticut wins,” data center developer Thomas Quinn wrote in the Courant last month. “That is the single most important outcome when considering the development of the hyper scale AI data center located next to the Millstone nuclear power plant.”

Quinn has hired former state Sen. William DiBella as his company’s lobbyist — by itself a reason to proceed with caution.

A data center is a place where data is stored, processed and distributed through the use of applications. The amount of data required to generate artificial intelligence, or AI, continues to grow and must be both securely stored and immediately available in data centers. They require staggering amounts of electricity to function.

The data center proposed for 55 acres at the Millstone plant would use as much as 13% of the power generated there, the Courant’s Ed Mahony reported last month. That power, under a deal between Dominion and the data center developer, will be sold to Quinn’s NE Edge at a

much lower cost than residential and commercial customers pay, already the second highest, after California, in the continental United States.

State government’s interest in data centers grew in early in 2021 when

Wall Street seemed ready to consider moving its massive data centers from New Jersey over a looming stock transaction tax. The Connecticut legislature passed emergency legislation to entice New York’s financial industry to store and process its data in Connecticut. New Jersey legislators dropped the proposal.

The supply of electricity is the price of admission to the data center sweepstakes. Quinn, the developer, wrote that Connecticut has plenty of electricity and more sources of it are being developed. This seems optimistic venturing into flim-flammery.

Our regional grid has been stretched to its limits in times of severe cold and hot weather. The collapse of the Park City Wind project last fall means a long delay in adding a crucial 804 watt supply of clean electricity.

The demand for electricity in Connecticut is likely to grow faster than the supply. This is what disrupts the sleep of leaders like the governor.

Millstone has long been our largest electricity generator. It is owned by Dominion, which several years ago threatened to close the two-unit nuclear plant.

The legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee recognizes risks any data center may pose to a reliable supply of electricity to state residents and businesses. Last month, it passed a proposal by Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, to require our regional power grid manager, ISO-New England, to study the impact of any data center on the cost and supply of electricity. One issue not getting enough attention is the source of backup electricity for the data center.

Nuclear power plants, for example, shut down for maintenance, inspections and refueling about once every 18- 24 months. There can be other unexpected disruptions. Data centers never shut down. Their customers require no interruptions. The proposed data center will have to have a reliable backup supply of power other than Millstone.

Data centers are the glittering prize of economic development officials, a sign a state is dashing into the future. Before irrevocable commitments are made to a controversial would-be data center developer, policy makers, power generators and ratepayers should understand if the price of a data center for the rest of us is higher rates, cold homes in the winter and hot ones in the summer.