Coweta County puts moratorium on proposed data center

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - The Coweta County Board of Commissioners voted for a moratorium on a proposed data center near Newnan.

The board of commissioners voted on a 180 day moratorium to draft a zoning ordinance that will allow for the build of the data center, called Project Sail.

Residents are vocal about the data center.

”It’s a temporary slow down is about all it is," said Ron Bockrach, who said the project would butt up next to his yard.

Atlas Development LLC proposed Project Sail. It is a 13 building data center campus that sits on more than 800 acres along U.S. 27 near Newnan between Welcome Sargent and Wager Mills roads.

“It wasn’t clear when they spoke about it at three this morning, and it was just as unclear this afternoon. So I’m not sure they left here knowing what they just voted for,” said Connie Lytten, who said she lives about 1,000 feet from Project Sail. “Never thought in a million years I’d be looking at a data center in our quiet rural area.”

Data centers employ a small number of employees, roughly 30 people.

The centers are used to store data from our everyday devices like cell phones, video games, household appliances and AI data like ChatGPT.

“So right now, we actually don’t have the power for this,” said Amy Sharma, Science for Georgia executive director.

Sharma said Project Sail is estimated to use between 750 to 950 mega watts of power a year. That is the equivalent of 1.4 million households, and twice the population of Augusta, according to Sharma.

The project is “going to use three billions gallons of water a year, which is approximately the use of 36,000 people, which is the population of Marietta,” said Sharma.

Sharma said customer water and power rates could go up because the state would have to add new energy capacities to keep up. Sharma said, it’s possible new water pipelines will be built, which taxpayers would pay for.

Sharma said the data company should be more transparent on benefits to the community. For example, tax revenues could go toward the county school systems. Sharma said engineers and computer scientists could also modernize technology.

“In three to four years they could really decrease the amount of power and water they need by upping their technological game,” said Sharma.

Sharma and residents said it is Georgia’s cheap land, water, and power that make it attractive for data centers.