St. Louis updates its proposed rules for data centers, with plans for more input

St. Louis is inching closer to a collection of comprehensive regulations governing data center developments inside the city limits.

The updated draft framework, shared yesterday, includes a litany of updates from the framework the city’s planning department first put forward in February, ones that it says treats the development type “even more cautiously” than before.

Go Deeper: Many of the newly introduced rules mirror conditions that the city already agreed to for the 120-megawatt project seeking to fill a warehouse adjacent to The Armory in Midtown. Those include ensuring the responsible disposal of electronic waste; making the developer cover the full cost of impacts to the city’s water system, as well as a hydraulic model study; and mitigating the urban heat island effect by having a Cool Roof, Green Roof or rooftop solar.

Renewable targets are also included in the proposed updates, with data centers prohibited from using only evaporative cooling, which the document calls “a highly water-intensive process.” The new rules don’t, however, stipulate using a “closed loop system” like the one in the Midtown project, because planners wanted to leave room for any new kind of cooling technology that may be later developed. 

Facilities larger than 10,000 square feet and drawing more than 5 megawatts would be required to have fully half of their electricity consumption come from renewables by the end of the fifth year operating. By the end of the 10th operating year, the facilities would be required to use entirely renewable energy sources. 

The newly proposed regulations also scale back the maximum power demand of a standard data center to from 75 megawatts to 30 megawatts. Any larger development would be categorized as a “Major Data Center,” which entail more requirements, including third-party prepared environmental and economic impact reports, a “letter of attestation” from the local electric utility (Ameren, in this case) describing the effects the project would have on grid reliability or local ratepayers, and hosting community meetings about the project at least 45 days before any formal application is filed.

Just like with the Midtown site, any development expecting to use more than 5 megawatts of power would have to enter into a community benefits agreement as well.

What’s Next: The new rules are far from complete as the city plans to gather feedback on its new plan with a hybrid public hearing in the Kennedy Room of City Hall on May 18 starting at 5:30 p.m. Planning staff will go over the updates to the framework in a virtual informational session one week prior.

St. Louis isn’t the only government body conducting public hearings this month; the Missouri House Utilities Commission is holding its own Wednesday morning starting at 8:30, and plans to hear from Ameren, Matt Enloe of the International Union of Operating Engineers, and Consumers Council of Missouri general counsel John Coffman.