Michigan Data Centers: The Weekly Download

New Developments

• Saginaw City Council voted 8-0 to approve a data center zoning ordinance. Alexander Gustanksi of Mid-Michigan Now reports that the new rules require developers to provide a good neighbor policy, a water consumption and thermal management report, an electric and natural gas service report and citizen participation measures.

Updates

• The Michigan Public Service Commission on Thursday unanimously approved contracts for DTE Energy to supply power to Google’s 1 gigawatt data center, Brian Allnutt of Planet Detroit reports. The data center is expected to come online in December 2027.
• Additionally, the Wayne County Commission voted unanimously to override Wayne County Executive Warren Evans’ veto of a $125 million tax break for the Google data center and community benefits agreement tied to the project, Candice Williams reports in The Detroit News.

Legislative Action

• State Rep. Reggie Miller (D-Van Buren Township) introduced House Bills 6426 and 6427. The legislation is intended to strengthen legal protections for local governments and require large-scale data center developers to provide up-front disclosure on the facility’s expected energy and water use, infrastructure needs, environmental impacts, ownership information and any expansion plans. The bills were referred to the House Government Operations Committee.

News of Note

• Ahead of the University of Michigan’s second town hall discussing its $1.25 billion computing center project with Los Alamos National Lab, U-M Regent Paul Brown joined township residents and labor representatives in speaking out against the facility, Allnutt also reported.
• As Michigan’s largest energy companies look into building new natural gas power plants, Lucas Smolcic Larson of MLive examines what role data centers play in driving energy demand in the state.

Originally published by Michigan Advance, a nonprofit news organization.