FREDERICK, Md. — A Data Center Summit at Frederick Community College Thursday turned into what some protestors called a "walk of shame."
Protestors confronted industry executives as they arrived at a sold-out luncheon hosted by the Maryland Tech Council, the state's largest technology trade association in the state. Some protestors shouted "shame," as others demanded that executives route a controversial power line project over their own properties and homes rather than swaths of farmland and forests in central Maryland, much of it with preservation and conservation restrictions.
The demonstration targeting the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, or MPRP, has spread to include resistance to the power-hungry data center industry in Northern Virginia and Maryland.
New routes are now under consideration for a 70-mile power line project running from near the Pennsylvania Line to a site in Frederick County near the Potomac River. New Jersey-based power line developer PSEG is not ruling out seizing land with the power of eminent domain, according to the company's MPRP website.
Data centers are a target now for protestors because the Maryland Office of the People’s Council, the state agency that protects ratepayers rights, has determined that, “data centers are largely—if not exclusively—responsible” for the electricity demand MPRP will serve.
PJM, the company that operates the electricity grid in 13 states says, "it’s more than just data centers. It’s EV (electric vehicles), manufacturing and other growth.”
The project is also designed to provide grid resilience and reliability as some power plants in Maryland are taken offline to meet carbon reduction goals, according to PJM.
But PJM's own documents cite data center demand from utilities serving Northern Virginia and Maryland as a driving force for the power line.
A new master-planned data center development is under construction in Southern Frederick County on a site rivaling the size of an international airport. Developer Quantum Loophole describes the project as "multi-gigawatt scale." A gigawatt is enough power to serve 750,0000 homes.
Quantum Loophole Chief Technology Officer Scott Noteboom engaged with protestors Thursday, saying a planned development near power lines is better than scattering data centers across the region.
"Putting these data centers in the right place is really important, versus putting them everyplace," Noteboom said.
Steve Black, president of the preservation group Sugarloaf Alliance, pushed back.
"If the community is going to have to pay the price for those power lines, its deeply unfair," Black said. "The people who benefit and make a profit from the power line should be the ones who foot the bill."
Maryland’s Public Service Commission will decide whether to permit the power line proposal, but the agency has not received a formal application yet, as developers say they are considering modifications to their plans.
Frederick County’s state legislative delegation is now opposed to the power line project.