A mega data center could drive AI, deliver billions to CT. Will politics and power worries doom it?

EDMUND H. MAHONY 

There is a political tug of war taking place over development of a data center in southeast Connecticut, a project that would put the state in the race to satisfy the voracious appetite of artificial intelligence for computational power while delivering $1 billion or more in payments to state and local governments.

What is dividing Gov. Ned Lamont’s commissioners and some in the legislature are questions arising from what promoters believe is a groundbreaking arrangement that makes a power-hungry, mega data center economically feasible in a state and region with some of the nation’s highest electric rates.

To power and cool tens of thousands of computer servers, the developers have arranged to plug directly into two nuclear-powered generators operated by Dominion Energy on Millstone Point in Waterford. Skeptics worry that the data center’s power consumption — as much as 13% of the Millstone output — could raise consumer electric rates or, worse, affect the reliability of the regional electricity supply.

Thomas Quinn, president of NE Edge, the data center developer, calls the concern unwarranted. He has forecasts created by the operator of the New England electric grid that he says show there will be more than enough generated electricity flowing into the network in coming years to support the center. And he said the tens of millions of dollars he has agreed to deliver to the state annually over the next 30 years could actually lower electric rates.

But not everyone is persuaded.

The Lamont administration is split. Economic and Community Development Commissioner Dan O’Keefe is an enthusiastic supporter, along with the town of Waterford, Dominion Energy and an array of business and labor groups. Katie Dykes, commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, is said by others involved in the project to oppose it and supports a bill in the legislature calling for a study that could delay it.

Quinn says a delay might doom the project by shifting momentum elsewhere in the race to build what would amount to New England’s first clean energy, hyper-scale data center.

Lamont appears to be keeping both options open, a spokesman said.

“Data centers are the backbone of the digital age, and Governor Lamont believes that Connecticut is a prime location for this industry to build this infrastructure and create the corresponding jobs that support their operations,” spokesman David Bednarz said. “As the governor noted in his State of the State address last month, modern technology is putting more demands upon the grid, and he welcomes the insight of legislators on the energy and environment committees regarding methods of sourcing the next generation of clean energy with an emphasis upon affordability.”

There is agreement on at least one point: In the age of artificial intelligence, powering the computational capacity to run devices like self-driving cars won’t be cheap, particularly in states turning away from traditional energy sources and struggling to develop expensive renewables like offshore wind. One industry group estimates AI could consume 8% of U.S. energy output by 2030.

“This is a unique one”

Quinn says NE Edge wants to build on a scale that would separate it from typical data centers — there are more than two dozen across Connecticut and Massachusetts — and the success of his plan turns on the cost of electricity.

“This isn’t a data center,” Quinn said. “This is a high performance compute AI base. That is what they call it. The difference in what we are doing from a normal data center is the difference between a single family house and a skyscraper.”

What distinguishes NE Edge is not just that it would be powered by a nuclear generation plant, but that it will have an agreement with plant operator Dominion that will allow the center to tie directly to the Millstone generators without passing through the costly transmission infrastructure controlled by Eversource and regulated by the state.

By remaining “behind the meter,” as Quinn puts it, NE Edge can negotiate a power purchase agreement with Dominion that is lower than the rate — one of the highest in the nation — that Connecticut utility customers pay. Without a negotiated “behind the meter” agreement, Quinn said a project of the scale he envisions would not be practical in New England.

It also makes for an environmentally friendly, “clean” operation by avoiding the use of carbon-based electric generation..

NE Edge would make money by connecting to the high speed fiber optic network that runs past the Millstone site and renting computing services to businesses, from online retailers to stock exchanges.

NE Edge has pushed its proposal for five years. It got a break in 2021 with enactment of a state law that waived sales and property taxes for up to 30 years for developers who invest $400 million in data center projects. The law, the product of an unsuccessful Connecticut attempt to attract data center development that could lure the processing of Wall Street trades away from New York and New Jersey, also cleared the way for behind the meter connections to electricity generators.

Quinn said NE Edge has secured $1.6 billion in financing for construction of buildings, an electric switching station and two, two-story buildings with a combined 1.2 million square feet. He plans to spend an equivalent amount on 25,000 to 35,000 servers and enough recyclable sodium ion batteries to ensure the power supply is never interrupted.

The data center would occupy 55 acres of Dominion’s 526 acre Millstone property and would not be visible from roads to the north or from Long Island Sound to the south, according to a report by the Connecticut Siting Council. Quinn said Turner Construction, currently building 17 clean data centers in the U.S., is to be the builder.

To keep the center quiet — Quinn said the center’s noise level should match the area’s ambient level — loud equipment like air handlers would be placed inside the buildings and enclosed by insulated concrete walls so thick they must be poured while lying flat on the ground and later tilted up into place.

Under a host fee provision in the state law establishing the tax incentive, NE Edge would pay Waterford $231 million over the next 30 years in lieu of property taxes.

The state would get more than $1 billion over 30 years, Quinn said.

Part of the state’s money would come from a premium NE Edge agrees to pay based on 12.08% of what it pays Dominion for electricity. Quinn said the premium could amount to $1.1 billion or about a third of what the state owes on a long-term power purchase agreement it has with Dominion. The state signed its agreement with Dominion as an incentive for the company to keep the Millstone reactors in operation, according to the Connecticut Siting Council.

Quinn said NE Edge has agreed to pay the state another $63 million over 30 years through contributions to an energy assistance fund that supports residents who cannot pay electricity bills.

Finally, NE Edge has agreed to store the state’s data at a rate discounted by 27.5%, Quinn said, a deal that would make Connecticut the first state to store its data in a fossil free operation.

Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association, said NE Edge’s Waterford plan is being watched closely by industry players across the Northeast.

“I really am hard pressed to think of another example in New England where we could see a data center come in at that scale with land use, population density and then, honestly, the retail price of electricity that is relatively high across New England compared to the rest of the country,” he said. “So I think this is a unique one.”

Dominion Energy said in a statement that it supports the project and recognizes “the benefits of constructing a large electric user near a generating plant.” The company is applying for license renewals that could keep the Millstone reactors active into the 2060s, and said that power purchase agreements like that contemplated with NE Edge are “critical to Dominion Energy’s continued operations.”

The company said it is “in discussions with NE Edge regarding a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) but there is not a signed PPA.”

“The right framework”

Waterford First Selectman Rob Brule said his board and the 28-member Representative Town Meeting both voted unanimously in support of the data center “to help retain our largest taxpayer, Dominion Energy, and provide additional decades of financial stability in the Town’s tax base.”

Questions about the NE Edge plan are coming from the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Dominion said it has “had high level conversations with DEEP about the data center project,” but did not elaborate. A DEEP spokesman said Commissioner Dykes would not discuss the project beyond her brief remarks when she appeared recently before the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee to comment on legislation that would order a study of data center electric power use.

“We recognize that artificial intelligence is providing enormous promise and there are a lot of questions about it,” Dykes told the committee. “But from the energy perspective alone I understand that the demand and need for data centers is expanding significantly …

“And so we think that it is really important to have the right framework to ensure that there is equitable deployment of this kind of demand, that it doesn’t shift any costs or increase costs to other ratepayers and is harmonized with the need to maintain reliability of the grid. So we welcome the opportunity to further engage with the committee as it decides on ways to support the expansion of data centers, but in a way that accomplishes those goals.”

Dykes was testifying on a brief and hastily drawn committee bill that, if enacted, would require a variety of regulatory agencies, including DEEP, the state’s rate setting authority and the independent operator of the New England energy grid, to “evaluate the impact of large data centers on grid reliability.”

Sen. Norm Needleman, the committee chairman who had staff draft the bill, said he is focused on a part of the NE Edge plan that would have the data center draw power from the regional power grid on occasions when Millstone generation is offline because of maintenance or other issues.

“That is like a double whammy on the power plan,” Needleman said. “You’ve got a 300 megawatts reduction at Millstone. And at the same time if something happened and backup needed to be run, you are pulling 300 megawatts off of the grid.”

Millstone is a major contributor to the regional electric grid, supplying 12% of the region’s peak energy load between 2019 and 2022, according to a report by the Connecticut Siting Council. The same report says that Dominion believes that providing power to the data center would not affect its commitment to supply the grid.

Dominion “believes the interconnection of the data centers and associated switchyard would not have any impact on Millstone Power Station’s  winter and summer reliability,” the report said.

As written, there is nothing in the committee bill that could block the data center. But Needleman called the bill a work in progress and said there is the possibility of a revision that could make the tax exemptions on which the project depends contingent on completion of an energy study. Other legislative observers said there is no guarantee the bill has enough support to survive in any form.

The siting council also has questions about the center’s power use, questions similar to those asked by Dykes. Its jurisdiction over the location of electrical generating facilities gives it authority to decide whether to grant a request by Dominion to sell a portion of its property on Millstone Point to NE Edge.

The council denied Dominion’s request to sell the land in early January. In a written decision, the siting council concluded that “it is premature” to examine terms of the land sale because of a “lack of information” about the data centers and their direct connection to Millstone.

With main parking lot under construction, Yard Goats partner with three providers to add extra parking

 Andrew Larson

When Hartford Yard Goats fans pull up to Dunkin’ Park for the first game of the season next week, they might be shocked to see mounds of dirt and bulldozers in their former parking lot across from the stadium on Main Street.

That’s where developer Randy Salvatore is building the next phase of his North Crossing development, which includes a 228-unit apartment building and a roughly 500-space parking garage. 

The former primary Yard Goats parking lot is closed.

But the Yard Goats have partnered with LAZ Parking, Hartford Parking Authority and Propark to offer $5 parking in six lots – including three new ones – all within about a block of Dunkin’ Park.

For the first time this year, fans will be able to park in the 1,000-space garage at 200 Church St. under an agreement with the garage operator, Propark. The lot is next to the XL Center.

Spectators can also park at the Saints lot, which has 267 spaces. The Hartford Parking Authority lot at 75 Windsor St. adds 803 spaces.

In total, there will be 5,500 spots available within a five-minute walk of the stadium, said Yard Goats President Tim Restall.

“We’re actually increasing the amount of parking that’s within walking distance to the ballpark,” Restall said.

Yard Goats home games attract about 1,200 cars on an average night, he said.

Average attendance exceeded 6,000 at home games last year – the highest average in the team’s history.

 

Yard Goats parking is available at the following locations:

300 Market St.

Saints Lot (285 Church St.)

1000 Main St.

275 Windsor St.

MAT Garage (55 Chapel St. South)

Church Street Garage (200 Church St.)

“We encourage fans to enter the parking lot address into their GPS to help expedite their arrival,” Yard Goats General Manager Mike Abramson said.

Fans can pre-pay for parking through the Yard Goats website and via the LAZgo app.

Fans also may commute to the games via CTfastrak and CT Transit bus services, from throughout the Greater Hartford area to within two blocks of Dunkin' Park. 

Free parking is available at CTfastrak stations in New Britain, Newington, West Hartford and Hartford Line/Union Station.

There are also 100 bicycle racks at the ballpark.

The Yard Goats’ first home game of the season is on Tuesday, April 9, against the Bowie Baysox.

The Yard Goats are the Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies.

For more information, visit yardgoatsparking.com.

Tax credits likely a boon to offshore wind industry in Connecticut

Greg Smith

New London ― State officials say the expanded eligibility of federal tax credits for offshore wind projects announced on Friday by the Biden Administration comes at an opportune time.

The bidding period for new offshore wind power projects in Connecticut closes on Wednesday, and offshore wind developers have spent the last year struggling with cost increases associated with inflation, high interest rates and supply chain issues. Some companies have canceled, postponed or tried to rebid projects in the U.S. and abroad.

On Friday, the Treasury Department issued new guidance on the offshore wind tax credits that state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes said provides clarity and incentives that will help drive new investments and secure lower-cost wind power in a state that has a goal of a zero-carbon grid by 2040.

Dykes on Monday was among a host of state and local officials to join U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., at State Pier, the site of an offshore wind staging and assembly facility. The group celebrated the news that in addition to the 30% tax credit already available for renewable energy developments, another 10% bonus credit is available for projects in locations deemed as “energy communities.” Energy communities are areas that have experienced job losses, economic distress or serious health ramifications because of proximity to polluted industrial sites known as brownfields or coal- or gas-fired power plants.

The tax credit program is part of the 2022 federal “Inflation Reduction Act,” and Blumenthal said he expects that places like New London, New Haven and other areas of the state being eyed for development by the offshore wind industry would be deemed energy communities and benefit as a result.

“(Offshore wind) is our future, we need to make sure we realize its full potential,” Blumenthal said.

With the list of energy communities not yet established, it remains unclear if New London qualifies and why.

Connecticut has just one contract for offshore wind power, the 300 megawatts associated with Ørsted and Eversource’s 704-megawatt Revolution Wind. That project is under construction and will be staged at State Pier this spring.

Paul Lavoie, chief manufacturing officer for Connecticut and chairman of the board for the Connecticut Wind Collaborative, said federal tax credits provide needed incentives for the offshore wind companies to invest in Connecticut. Aside from State Pier, which Lavoie called the “epicenter of the offshore wind industry,” the tax credits open more opportunities for the state’s other deep water ports in Bridgeport and New Haven.

“Having the full benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act working here in New England, working here in Connecticut, means that we will be assured that offshore wind will be more affordable as we look to invest in this important resource,” Dykes said.

The state in the latest bid solicitation joined with Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and could decide to buy up to 2,000 megawatts of offshore wind power. Together, the three states are seeking up to 6,800 megawatts.

U.S. Rep Joe Courtney in a statement said the Treasury Department up until Friday had provided a “limited path for credit eligibility for offshore wind projects,” and that New London and projects at State Pier were unlikely to receive the bonus credit.

Courtney said the new guidance is “game-changing news for southeastern Connecticut” that will provide incentives for future offshore wind projects to select locations like State Pier.

“Today’s announcement, coupled with the offshore wind projects already taking place in the Long Island Sound, will further cement our region’s leading role in clean energy production, which is good for the economy, homeowners, and our climate,” Courtney said.

Blumenthal on Monday also highlighted $3.3 million in federal funding for the University of Connecticut to advance an electric grid powered by wind and solar energy.

New bridge taking shape at Wilton's Lovers Lane; work near Merwin Meadows to be completed in summer

Karen Tensa

WILTON — Construction crews have been busy with work underway on a bridge replacement project on Lover Lane near Merwin Meadows park. 

Motorists last week faced intermittent closures on Lovers Lane as a crane and bridge beams were delivered and installed at the work site.

The entire bridge replacement project is expected to be completed this summer. 

The work this spring is the latest step in installing a new 60-foot bridge that will carry Lovers Lane over the Comstock Brook near the park. 

Lovers Lane, which is off Ridgefield Road, also known as Route 33, opposite Wilton Center, connects with Merwin Lane. Both roads are dead-ends, and there are about 10 houses as well as the Wilton Playshop along the road that leads to Merwin Meadows town park.

Last year, a temporary bridge, allowing one lane of alternating traffic, was installed on Lovers Lane. It temporarily replaced a 90-year-old bridge that was "functionally obsolete," had structural problems and was only 16 feet wide. 

The total cost of the construction of the replacement bridge was estimated at $2.7 million to $2.8 million in 2020. The town will be responsible for 20 percent of the cost, with federal funds paying the remaining 80 percent.

Fairfield will go to court to block UI monopole plan, first selectman says

Jarrod Wardwell

FAIRFIELD — Local property owners will lose more land than initially expected under United Illuminating's plan to build steel monopoles through town as part of a major utility line upgrade.

The amount of private property UI can use in Fairfield is set to increase from less than nine acres to nearly 11 acres as the result of a Connecticut Siting Council decision last month to move the proposed monopoles, which will carry transmission lines along the railroad tracks, from the south to the north of the tracks, according to council filings.

UI had applied to use 19.25 acres of private property across Fairfield and Bridgeport for the project, but the Siting Council's decision had not specified that relocating the monopoles north would increase that number to 22 acres, which UI officials confirmed to Hearst Connecticut Media was their current total estimate. The Siting Council is the state panel that regulates utility projects.

"Oh my dear lord," said Fairfield First Selectman Bill Gerber, who was unaware of the increase in private property acreage until reached for comment.

Gerber said the town plans to file an appeal against the project in Superior Court soon, and he hopes the legal action from the town will mean a stay from the court, pausing UI's construction until a judge makes a ruling on the project's legality. UI officials said construction is set to begin between 2025 and 2026, and the revised plans would likely jack up the project's cost from $225 million to an estimated $322 million.

Gerber said he viewed the Siting Council's decision as a potential "step in the right direction" last month but said the lack of communication about the added impact to private property did a "disservice" to the public.

"It's embarrassing — I don't know if its embarrassing for me or for them," he said of UI. "If they had this information, it's another example of them not being transparent. That's really, really hard to understand why they wouldn’t have made that clear."

Neighbors, businesses and elected officials have protested the construction plans for months. The plan to use private property for the poles would provide UI with permanent access to homes, businesses and place of worship and restrict the development of those properties, critics said. 

Cindi Bigelow — president and CEO of Bigelow Tea, whose Fairfield headquarters border the railroad tracks — said officials with the tea company are working to learn more about the monopoles, worried there might be a "significant impact" if any are put up on their property. She said she hasn't heard from UI about the plans and questioned if that means the Bigelow property would dodge the direct effects of the project.

"I realize these poles could be impacting a lot of residents and businesses," she said in an email. "I  am concerned for all those affected."

Gerber said UI and his administration had not spoken about the alternative plan to move the monopoles north until earlier this month, when they met for a tour of the targeted properties north of the railroad tracks. UI officials said they sent a letter last month to their resident and business customers who either are near the railroad tracks or sit within the project's "direct visual line." The letter explained the engineering, energy land management, community outreach and environmental and permitting work the company plans over the next year or two.

Liz O'Connell, a business manager at Highland Imports on Linwood Avenue, which sits across the street from the railroad tracks, said earlier this month that she hadn't received any kind of a notice from UI about the monopoles. She said she was worried about traffic interruptions from construction near the business, which sits in between Post Road and Interstate 95.

"It's difficult for the truck drivers to even back into our loading dock as it is right now, so if these poles are going to be some massive obstacle, that's going to be a problem," she said.

The monopoles relocated to the north would extend from the project's western border near Sasco Creek to the Ash Creek substation, which sits across from the Fairfield Metro station in Bridgeport's Black Rock neighborhood. Moving those monopoles north would increase the total area of private property easements in Fairfield, which give UI the legal right to use residents' land. UI applied to use 5.9 acres of private property between those two points, but that number will jump to eight acres under the revised plans, according to the Siting Council.

UI project manager Shawn Crosbie said the private property easements won't extend east of the Ash Creek substation, leaving Bridgeport virtually untouched by any further increase. Crosbie also said UI plans to lower the monopoles by roughly 10 percent of their originally proposed heights, which were set to range from 95 to 195 feet tall. He said lower monopole height likely means more monopoles to account for wire slack. 

"Our job is to reduce impacts to customers and the environment in some of the things we look at," he said.

The Siting Council process surrounding the UI project has stirred debate in Hartford, where committees in the state Senate and House of Representatives consider bills that would reform the body's makeup. The Senate bill proposed neighborhood representation on the Siting Council; the House bill would bar more than one member with past or current investment or employment ties to utilities from serving on the body.

Siting Council officials did not return multiple requests for comment.

UI spokesperson Sarah Wall Fliotsos stressed that current figures for the Fairfield project are estimates, not cemented calculations, as UI continues to craft a new project design that will balance its electric grid with the community it abuts.

"Modernizing the transmission infrastructure — not only in Fairfield County but across our service territory — is essential to delivering reliable, resilient electric service now and well into the future, and UI is committed to working with all our stakeholders to ensure this obligation is met,” she said in an email.