data center

Energy experts gathered in Raleigh this week to discuss how North Carolina’s energy grid — and ratepayers’ wallets — will handle the incoming wave of new data centers.

Large data centers like the ones recently announced in Richmond and Rockingham counties come with significant energy and water needs. Data centers can require 200 megawatts of power or more, and they use millions of gallons of water every day for evaporative cooling.

On Wednesday, Amazon announced that it will invest approximately $10 billion and add 500 jobs with a new data center campus to be built in Richmond County, North Carolina.