2025 will be remembered as the year of the data center, with an estimated 200 new projects offering a growing market for clean energy. Though many Americans know relatively little about data centers, they have stirred up significant opposition from people of all walks of life.
This backlash is making an impact: 25 data center projects were canceled last year and nearly 100 projects faced at least some form of opposition, according to Heatmap Pro data. At least 60 municipalities have enacted bans or moratoria on them, and many states are seeing calls for stricter regulations.
This kind of controversy is probably a familiar story to most renewable energy developers. However, by analyzing the parallels between data center and renewable project opposition, developers can glean new takeaways to support their solar, wind, and BESS projects on the path to permitting success.
Let’s take a closer look at these similarities:
Unlike the renewable energy backlash, which generates more right-wing pushback, liberals and conservatives alike are mobilizing against data center development.
Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has become the target of strong criticism for her administration’s support for data centers, leading a state public service commission that has been accused of bulldozing local objections. This has led to GOP rivals using data center opposition as a key campaign promise.
However, the Trump Administration is trying to push data center growth despite the increasing frustrations from within the Republican base.
In Georgia, a state long dominated by Republicans in statewide utility regulation, voter anger over data centers helped Democrats score their first statewide Public Service Commission victories in nearly twenty years, driven by concerns about power costs and resource consumption.
Data center growth is under scrutiny from opponents and environmental groups alike, with concerns about unconstrained data center growth sticking residents with soaring energy bills and the consequences of environmental degradation. Those against renewable power have levied similar accusations against clean energy projects for years.
However, the impacts of data centers – exemplified by personal wells dry up due to data centers’ water usage in Pennsylvania and an Amazon data center’s pollution of the Lower Umatilla Basin aquifer in Oregon – contrast sharply with the oft-repeated benefits of renewable energy development, including grid stabilization and a healthier planet.
The stereotype of renewable energy being an elite-driven ideological exercise is similar to the association of data centers with billionaires, Big Tech, and the increasingly controversial AI and surveillance programs that impact Americans’ daily lives much more than clean energy production.
Opponents decry renewable energy developers as shadowy interests with no regard to the communities they develop in, but the average American can’t name any of these developers. However, Microsoft, Meta, and Google are household, and few have positive associations with the companies.
Once communities mobilize against a data center, some extend that organizing to contest associated transmission lines or renewable projects, broadening into a single movement against “advanced tech” land uses.
This cross-pollination follows (real or imaginary) practical concerns that link both types of projects, including noise, impacts to soil and water, and various claims about human and animal safety. While the backlash against solar, wind and BESS have typically focused on agricultural land, data centers being built in suburban areas bring these familiar objections to new audiences.
A notable example is the nationwide Facebook group Stop Solar-Wind-BESS-Carbon Capture Scams, which is one of the most active opposition groups with multiple posts per day and over 9,600 members. There has been a marked increase in data center-related content in the group since summer 2025, with over 20 posts on the topic in December alone. These typically consist of anti-data center “victories” across the country, describing the problems with data center development, and objections to the centers’ energy demands – including renewable energy purchasing.
With many states and the federal government offering new incentives for their development and some siting decisions being taken away from host communities, typical “NIMBY” sentiments are developing into organized opposition movements and legislative action.
Data center opponents are inflaming tensions between local and statewide siting authorities, including in suburban areas where these conflicts are historically uncommon. States with a central permitting process for data centers may be more likely to see large-scale opposition to them, like Michigan’s pro-data center public service commission. Siting authority is not the only catalyst for this resentment; In Pennsylvania, state lawmakers’ support of tax subsidies and other benefits packages for data centers in the form of tax subsidies provoked backlash from host communities.
At the local, state, and federal level, data centers will continue to dominate debates about land use and technology for years to come. But when a project’s publicity is in capable hands, developers and host communities alike will reap the rewards. KAOH’s collaboration with Fieldwise Civic Engagement can help you identify and overcome local opposition through our network of dedicated advocates – drop us a line to learn how we can help!
