Durham County commissioners voted 4-1 Monday night to adopt a nine-month moratorium on new large-scale data centers.
The moratorium puts the county in line with the city of Durham, which also implemented a pause on new data centers until May 2027.
Commissioner Nida Allam joined dozens of Durham County residents who spoke at the meeting, raising concerns about data centers' water and energy use, noise, and potential air and water pollution.
"For me, in my perspective, a delay for a company of nine months is monetary. But the impact on folks' health and wellbeing, and financial stability, is going to last a lifetime," Allam said.
The county's measure does not apply to data centers that are less than 100,000 square feet, use a closed-loop cooling system, and do not use diesel backup generators. Hyperscale data centers operated by Apple, Meta, and Google easily exceed 100,000 square feet.
Allam was the only commissioner who voted against the moratorium, saying she did not support its exemption for smaller data centers.
The moratorium is intended to allow commissioners time to consider how to respond to potential data center proposals. Commissioner Larissa Williamson noted that currently it would be difficult to ensure that data center operators comply with limits on electrical usage.
"Logistically I think we would have a problem, particularly with the electrical load and making sure (data centers) are actually using the amount they are certifying because I don't know how we would enforce that, particularly since we have no enforcement powers over the electrical usage," she said. "I'm not an expert in that field, but I think that would be our biggest issue."
Status of data center moratoriums in the Triangle
- Durham County: Its nine-month moratorium will last until May 2027, in alignment with the city of Durham.
- Orange County: County commissioners adopted a moratorium this past spring that will expire in April 2027.
- Chatham County: Leaders there approved a 12-month moratorium earlier this year that expires in Feb. 2027.
- Raleigh: The city does not have a data center moratorium in place.
- Apex: The town council this year put in place a 12-month moratorium that expires in April 2027.
- Wendell: The town has a moratorium on data centers that expires at the end of December 2026.
- Cary: The town council voted in late May to have town staff draft a proposal and a timeline for pausing data center development.
- Johnston, Person and Franklin counties: These counties do not have a data center moratorium in place.
- Harnett County: Harnett approved a one-year moratorium in May 2026.
- Sanford and Lee County: Sanford and Lee County does not have a data center moratorium in effect, noting in a public notice that a moratorium would create a "legal quagmire." Local officials instead updated its rules regarding potential data center development proposals.
