Residents Eager for Answers About Data Center

Residents of Single Member District 4 in San Angelo gathered Monday night for what was scheduled to be a small community-led meeting about rezoning and data centers in the Paulann area.

But, as word spread throughout town, members of the Chamber of Commerce and Mayor Tom Thompson said they would be in attendance as well.

As people arrived, the meeting turned into a mini town hall, with City Councilman Patrick Keely and Chamber of Commerce VP of Economic Development Michael Looney fielding questions from around the room.

Instead of asking about the Paulann rezoning, the public had much bigger questions about the proposed Skybox Data center and future tech development in the area.

Keely and Looney were able to answer most questions people had regarding energy and water use, with a few key questions left in the air.

Many of Looney’s responses were based on a tour he had of a similar type of Skybox data center in Austin.

“I don’t want anything in this community that’s gonna cause legacy problems, that’s gonna suck up our water or mess up our electricity.”

There were many topics discussed, but at the heart of every question was the concern that the data center construction represents outside companies wielding their influence over the towns economy.

After explaining some about the inner workings of the center, Looney addressed this concern.

“We are not a deal-at-all-costs community. I can assure you there are communities in Texas that have a deal-at-all-cost philosophy…they might offer millions [of dollars] in tax incentives that they don’t need to,” Looney said.

“We don’t do that; we don’t stand for that. We live here, so we’re not gonna let some carpetbagger come in here and tell us how to run our city.”

Much of the following information can be found in greater detail in a previous article: Skybox Data Center May Be San Angelo’s Future. What we know now is what the planners have told the city.

Water Use

The first questions on everyone’s mind was the potential water use for this project. Looney explained what kind of cooling systems would be needed for the facility. He likened the design to the radiator on a car, which is a sealed system.

He said that the cooling tubes would run in large circuits throughout the facility, cooled with a mixture of freshwater and glycol, a stabilizer that lowers the freezing point and heightens the boiling point of water. Unlike the additives in coolant for automobiles, the glycol mixture is reported to be food grade.

It takes about 1.5 million gallons of water to charge the system, which multiplied out over the six facilities comes to 9-million gallons, but the construction will be staggered in phases and will not need to be charged all at once.

For some context: San Angelo Water Department officials report an intake of around 12 -13 million-gallons per day during the winter months, noting that the 1.5-million gallons is around 12.5 percent of the city’s average-daily-water-use per system charge.

It can be hard to picture this amount of water. Another way to look at it is that it takes about 500,000 gallons of freshwater to raise an acre of corn, a particularly thirsty crop.

Noise

Another main concern was noise pollution.

While the data center is running under normal conditions, residents are likely to not hear anything father than a few hundred feet away. Looney described the noise from the facility he toured in Austin as “like standing outside a Home Depot.”

However, the facility would get noisy sometimes. This noise would be caused by the diesel generators that each server bank is equipped with. These generators would be similar to the ones which currently serve as backup power for Shannon Memorial hospital.

In the event of a black out, the data center would be able to sustain its own electricity need of 600 MWH without drawing on the local grid. These generators are somewhat noisy up close. There will be at least two dozen of these generators per building, and they will all have to be tested for 30 minutes once a month to ensure function.

Electricity

One resident stated that the cost of electricity was simply going to go back to residents. Before Looney could answer another resident put it simply:

“Will it cause my power bill to go up?”

“ERCOT has been given a directive from the state legislature to massively increase their capacity,” Looney explained. “Texas, right now, without the data center explosion, is five years behind where we need to be on electricity infrastructure.

“I had the same question as you, ‘Is this gonna start jacking our bills?’ The answer is yes in the sense that the infrastructure that’s being demanded is going to be added to bills. That’s gonna be state wide.

“Is the data center renaissance increasing bills? It is, but so are all the chemical companies, steel companies, residential areas…”

Taxes and Abatements

No tax breaks will be issued to the Skybox project, and the city is excited to potentially double its tax base, as Looney claims.

According to previous reports, the center would add around $7 billion of value to the City’s property tax roll. To put that into perspective, the current value in the entire city is around $7.9 Billion according to City Finance Director Tina Dierschke.