ADAMS COUNTY, Ohio — A new regulatory filing shows a proposed data center in Adams County would be among the largest in Ohio, consuming more than 20 times as much electricity as Adams County itself.
The Feb. 3 filing from AES Ohio said a data center “in the vicinity” of the former Stuart power plant would require 1300 megawatts of electricity by 2032.
That would make it larger than any existing data center in Ohio. And it would be among a handful of planned Ohio projects expected to require more than one gigawatt of electricity to operate.
“People are going to be even more pissed off,” said Alex Schaffer, a data center critic who is running for Adams County Commission. “The biggest concern people have down there is, number one, it’s their own back yard. Two, it doesn’t fit the landscape/preservation. And three, water and energy consumption.”
The filing is significant for another reason: It confirms for the first time in public records that there is a data center project in the works.
Ohio EPA records, revealed by the WCPO 9 I-Team in a Feb. 5 report, disclosed that 12 light industrial buildings were proposed at the former Dayton Power & Light landfill site north of the Stuart landfill. Neither the EPA nor Adams County officials would confirm that project was a data center.
AES Ohio, formerly known as Dayton Power & Light, confirmed the data center with its Feb. 3 filing. But it declined to name the operator or confirm the project will be on the former landfill site.
WATCH: WCPO's I-Team looks into the filing that confirms the data center project
“It’s north of the (former Stuart plant’s) switch yard, is what I can share at this point,” said Mary Ann Kabel, director of corporate communications for AES Ohio.
Kabel said the Feb. 3 filing is the first step in a review process to make sure the region’s energy grid can handle the increased load.
“It’s a very thorough process and it could take up to two years, possibly longer,” Kabel said.
AES Ohio submitted the document to the Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee of PJM Interconnect, which manages the electric grid and wholesale electricity market in a 13-state region.
“AES Ohio has a customer request for service in the vicinity of its Stuart Substation in Adams County, OH,” said the filing. “Total Data Center load request, associated timelines and load totals were depicted in a chart, showing the data center would start at 100 MW in 2028, and ramp up to 1300 MW, or 1.3 gigawatts, by March 2032.
A WCPO 9 I-Team analysis of similar PJM filings by Ohio utilities in the last two years found the Adams County project ranked third in Ohio, behind a 2 GW data center planned in Mt. Orab and a 1.5 GW data center in Wilmington.
Both projects have faced public opposition.
In Wilmington, the city’s planning commission tabled an Amazon data center project after company representatives couldn’t answer questions about cooling mechanisms, generator types, noise mitigation and other issues. But Wilmington’s city council was slated to vote on annexation and zoning matters this evening, so the project isn’t dead.
In Mt. Orab, Village Councilman Eric Lang introduced two ordinances that would ban data centers for 180 days. The ordinances passed on first reading Feb. 4, but require two more readings before final approval.
Adams County residents are raising many of the same frustrations as those in Brown and Clinton counties. They include a lack of transparency, the risk of rising energy costs, and pollution from light, noise and discharged cooling water.
But the Adams County backlash began at an earlier stage.
That’s because Duke Energy first brought the Mt. Orab project to PJM in June 2024, long before details of the project were publicly known. AES Ohio brought the Wilmington project to PJM last February.
The Stuart project, by contrast, came to light two days after AES Ohio introduced it at a PJM committee meeting.
PJM’s review of the Adams County proposal could be complicated by the fact that power lines from three different utilities could be needed to serve the site: AES, Duke Energy and AEP Ohio.
Neither has taken a position on the AES proposal.
Adding more complexity, the Stuart plant’s substation and an adjacent switch yard are owned by AES. But the rest of the Stuart plant site is in AEP’s service territory.
“PJM will conduct a do not harm analysis on all needs/solutions presented that would identify any potential issues on AEP’s or any neighboring transmission owner’s system,” Columbus-based AEP said in a statement. “If limitations were identified, AEP Transmission would work with PJM to propose required mitigations.”
Schaffer said those complexities could give residents more time to promote land-use planning and zoning restrictions that address community concerns. Monroe Township passed a resolution toward that end last week. Sprigg Township, home of the Stuart plant, has a meeting scheduled for Feb. 23.
"(Adams County Economic Development Director) Paul Worley is saying, ‘Oh when there’s a plan in place, we’ll present it.’ I’m like, ‘You know when that happens, it’s too late,’” Schaffer said. “The county should be taking a proactive approach to this … It doesn’t matter if they do it or not. It’s up to the residents. They’re the ones that can file a petition and put it in place.”
Beyond those issues, developers have yet to secure EPA approval of a wetland mitigation plan that could enable their 12-building industrial park.
They’ve also filed an application with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a Nationwide Permit 39, which protects non-tidal waters from damage caused by commercial development.
As those issues are addressed, activist Nikki Gerber is learning everything she can about data centers and sharing it with a 1,300-member Facebook group she created, Adams County for Responsible Development.
“Some of our neighbors are going have to deal with 24-hr-a-day construction in the middle of a holler,” said Gerber, owner of MoonDoggie LIVERee, a kayak and canoe rental comapany in Manchester. “I know how the hollers work. It echoes. It’s loud. There’s gonna be lights.”
This week, Gerber traveled to New Albany, where Facebook is building the first Ohio data center that exceeds one gigawatt.
“The New Albany campus started in 2017,” Gerber said. “They’re still building. Those neighbors up there were upset. It was 24 hours a day. Just non-stop construction for the last nine years. The neighborhood we went to, it was about a mile away from the facility. They said they need black out curtains still, at a mile away from the facility.”
