Data centers have dominated headlines and social feeds lately. In a four-part series, WVXU is delving into some of the issues surrounding them. In Adams County, Amazon Web Services is considering a data center that could be among the biggest in Ohio. Some residents are questioning what that means for their community — and their power bills.
The Ohio River ripples past the public landing in Manchester, where a wooden dock floats next to a small beach. Nikki Gerber points out a mayfly flitting above the water. The canoe and kayak livery owner says the insect is a reminder of the river’s improving health — and the region’s growing ecotourism opportunities.
Every summer, Gerber leads guided paddles through valleys in the Appalachian foothills to show off Adams County’s "best kept secrets." But, she says, it hasn’t always been easy getting people out on the water.
The town of 2,000 is sandwiched between two former power plants, the Killen and Stuart stations. They burned coal and oil on the banks of the Ohio River from the 1970s until they both closed in 2018.
"It took me four years to change the perception of the river to stop getting people to think it was a nasty old river," Gerber said. "It took me going out there and jumping in it a hundred times and showing people I'm not turning green and showing people the beauty of it."
Now, Gerber is worried a potential development near the former Stuart power plant could reverse her progress and hurt her community.
A 1,300 MW data center
Adams County officials say Amazon Web Services is evaluating 1,000 acres in Sprigg Township for a data center. The site is minutes away from downtown Manchester and includes a former Dayton Power & Light landfill.
Emails between AWS and county leaders suggest the project has been under consideration for years. But it came as a surprise to many residents, who didn’t find out until February.
In the months since, Gerber and others have scoured public records and attended county commissioner meetings to piece together information about the possible data center. They’ve raised concerns about transparency, water use, impacts on nature and how the massive facility will be powered.
Buck Canyon Properties currently owns the Sprigg Township site. A wetland permit application indicates a development on the property could include 12 "light industrial buildings' and utility infrastructure. Initial site work, including grading, has been approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
A regulatory filing from AES Ohio shows a data center near the Stuart substation in Sprigg Township could require 1,300 megawatts of electricity. That’s about 30 times what Adams County uses annually, according to reporting from our news partner WCPO. The infrastructure needed to support that increased demand is readily available at the former power plant.
A county webpage about the data center says state utility regulations will prevent AES from charging residential customers more to "subsidize data center operations." The site says Amazon Web Services will pay for the electricity it uses for the data center, and will "fund, build, own, and operate a substation on the campus to power the facility."
Economic benefits
When the two power plants shut down, the region lost more than 1,000 jobs and $8.5 million in tax revenue, according to research published in Regional Science Policy & Practice.
Amazon Web Services touts the possible data center's economic benefits, estimating the $10 billion investment will bring 500 jobs to Adams County. Other local governments in Ohio have approved hefty tax abatements for data centers, forgoing some tax revenue to secure project commitments.
WVXU reached out to the three Adams County commissioners, but did not receive a response.
Evidence on whether data centers deliver as many jobs as they promise, especially in rural areas, is scarce.
Electric bills already 'a struggle'
Some people remain skeptical. Helen Newman runs a beef cattle operation and has lived in Adams County her whole life. She questions what the proposed data center’s electric demand will do to her and her neighbors’ bills and budgets.
"A lot of people in this area have electric bills now that are rivaling, especially in the wintertime, their mortgages and their rent," Newman told WVXU. "It's been a struggle for a lot of people before this. So, what's it going to do to us after?"
She’s also running as an independent candidate for Adams County Commissioner, spurred to act over concerns about transparency around the data center.
There are about 200 energy-intensive data centers in Ohio already driving up the cost of energy generation.
Data center load growth has hiked power costs $23 billion for consumers across the PJM Interconnection grid, the electricity market that serves Ohio, according to the Independent Market Monitor.
"It's because [data centers] have an unprecedented amount of demand, and the supply is just not keeping up with the demand," said Maureen Willis, director of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel (OCC). "With those two conditions, that creates an increase in price, and that's what we've seen."
The OCC is the state’s independent residential utility consumer advocate. The group says that price increase appears in the supply/generation piece of your electric bill, which makes up about half of what you pay.
The search for solutions
Willis says the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel supports policies that aim to get big tech companies to pay their fair share for energy infrastructure, like the federal Ratepayer Protection Pledge.
"The question is, is how do you implement that policy? How do you ensure that the data centers are paying all the costs?" Willis said. "And that's where it comes down to where we have issues on transparency. You know, do we know all the costs? Are they easily identifiable? What are they?"
The Consumers' Counsel is also advocating for statewide data center tariffs.
Some people like Nikki Gerber, the canoe livery owner, want to take regulations a step further. She helped found Conserve Ohio, a grassroots organization gathering signatures for a statewide constitutional amendment that would ban large-scale data centers. They're aiming to be on the ballot in November 2027.
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