Allen Park officials postpone decision on 26-megawatt data center

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The Allen Park Planning Commission voted Thursday night to postpone a decision on the application for a 26-megawatt data center in the city, planned for a site on Enterprise Drive south of I-94.

Commissioners will use the delay to allow for an additional sound study; evaluation by the city fire department; and to reach out to neighboring communities.

The commission will also gather data identified in a Jan. 5 site plan review by the planning firm Carlisle/Wortman, which called for developer Solstice Data to provide additional project details related to planning and water consumption.

Commissioner Fred Frank cast the sole vote against the postponement.

The decision came at the end of an overflowing, four-hour public meeting attended by more than 125 people. Around 40 area residents spoke during the meeting’s public comment period, almost all in opposition to the data center.

Many speakers expressed concerns that the data center could cause air and water pollution, support harmful artificial intelligence technology, or contribute to further increases in residents’ electric bills.

“There is an elephant in the room: will this raise our rates?” Abbas Alawieh, a Michigan Senate candidate, asked during the meeting. He said only DTE Energy could answer this question, and asked the commission to bring the utility’s representatives to a meeting.

Joanna Whaley, a candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives, said at a rally outside city hall before the meeting that high power bills are the No. 1 thing residents ask her about, and they add to the strain on all but the wealthy.

“The corporations are doing really well right now, and all the rest of us are doing worse and having to make decisions about what bill we might pay,” she said.

Energy experts previously told Planet Detroit that demand from data centers could raise costs for other customers by requiring new power plants, prolonging dependencee on expensive fossil fuel generation, and driving up the wholesale cost of power.

Developers say Allen Park facility unlike large AI data centers

Impacts from the proposed facility will be minimal, and the project will bring jobs and tax revenue, Solstice Data representatives said in a presentation Thursday.

A neighboring DTE substation has available capacity to accommodate the data center, and the only infrastructure needed for the project is a feeder, said David Gibson, Solstice Data senior vice president for power and land. He described a feeder as “a big extension cord” running from the substation to the facility.

Large data centers could lead to higher energy rates, but the 26 MW Allen Park project is about 2% as large as the 1-gigawatt data centers being considered in other communities, Gibson said.  

The Allen Park facility would be part of a “cluster of data centers” Solstice Data plans to develop in Metro Detroit, according to documents submitted by the company to the city.

Tony Graham, commercial leader for Solstice Data, said the facility will be an “edge data center,” meaning it won’t be used for training artificial intelligence models, instead facilitating applications where the data center needs to be close to the user.

This could include enabling self-driving cars, factory automation, and the timing of traffic lights, he said.

The project would create around 25 jobs, 200 temporary construction jobs, and bring $6.2 million to $7.4 million in property tax revenue to the city each year, Graham said.

Generators could add to Allen Park’s air quality problems, residents say

Several residents expressed concern a data center could add to Allen Park’s problems with poor air quality and asthma.

According to MiEJScreen, Michigan’s environmental justice screening tool, the area where the data center will be sited is in the 78th percentile, with areas to the east and south in the 98th and 88th percentile. These scores indicate pollution exposure and sensitive populations that are well above average.

During a question-and-answer session, an attendee asked Solstice Data Co-Founder and CEO Phil Harvey if the data center would emit air pollution and he said it would not.

Diesel generators, used to provide data centers with backup power during power outages, emit carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides, adding to ozone formation.

A report by the data center design firm B-Global Tech submitted to the planning commission said the generators will be diesel-powered.

Carlisle/Wortman’s site plan review said the facility will have 12 generators and 12 above ground fuel tanks for backup power.

Harvey told Planet Detroit that it is still undecided whether the data center would use diesel generators.

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