Thanks to AI-focused companies, data centers have been pushed into the limelight, and Maine’s state legislature is doing something about it.
Yesterday, Maine’s Democrat-controlled state legislature passed a moratorium on construction of new data centers. The state’s House passed the measure 79 to 62, while the Senate passed it 21 to 13 along party lines.
Governor Janet Mills’ signature is still needed to turn it into law. She is expected to do just that under certain circumstances.
It helped that Maine has relatively low data center activity – there are currently two projects that requested permits for generators. Regardless, data centers have been shown to drive up home energy costs. Maine has the country’s fourth highest electric bills.
This bill isn’t an outright ban on data centers. Rather, as previously mentioned, it places a moratorium on new construction until November 2027. It also creates a council that will look at how data centers financially impact state residents.
As for the bill, the threshold for the moratorium is 20 megawatts. This effectively blocks construction of AI data centers, which use around 40 megawatts of energy on average.
Maine is the first U.S. state to pass any sort of statewide block on new data center construction. Similar bills have either stalled or failed in other states, including New York, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, and others. Cities are also considering similar measures, albeit at a more localized level.
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