Greensboro council weighs data center concerns, no moratorium vote

Greensboro leaders are starting to ask whether data centers would bring enough benefit to justify the pressure they can put on neighborhoods and infrastructure, with Southeast Greensboro emerging as a particular point of concern.

The City Council did not vote on a moratorium, but several members said this week they were uneasy about the pace of data center proposals spreading across North Carolina. The discussion began after a public speaker urged city leaders to pause new construction, pointing to Boone, where the Town Council unanimously approved a one-year moratorium on data center development on March 24, 2026. WFDD reported that the Boone vote was 5-0 and that nearly 100 residents packed the meeting in support.

In Greensboro, Crystal Black said the city already takes on a share of the region’s burdens, including highways, pollution and landfills, and should not automatically absorb the downsides tied to data centers as well. Tammi Thurm asked city staff to alert council members earlier when proposals surface, giving the city time to do its homework and line up policies with community expectations before projects land on an agenda.

The local debate is part of a broader statewide fight over who pays for the costs of growth. At the General Assembly, House Bill 1063, the Ratepayer and Resource Protection Act, was referred to the House Rules Committee on April 28, 2026. The measure would require large data centers to publicly report electricity use, peak demand, water consumption, cooling systems and any emissions-free generation they use. A separate legislative summary for House Bill 1002 says lawmakers want to bar grid or energy costs incurred solely for serving data centers from being shifted to ratepayers and to create a special commission for data center planning.

Gov. Josh Stein’s North Carolina Energy Policy Task Force said demand is rising quickly because of new data centers, advanced manufacturing and population growth. One report on the task force said data centers account for about 80% of Duke Energy’s projected energy demand. Duke Energy’s 2025 Carolinas Resource Plan, filed Oct. 1, 2025, says the utility is modernizing infrastructure to support future growth, while recent coverage shows the company courting new data center development as it reports strong profits.

Greensboro residents can still push the issue into public view before council. City rules allow written comments by 5 p.m. the day before a meeting or in-person sign-ups by 5:30 p.m. the night of the meeting, a narrow window that now matters as the city weighs whether data centers are an economic win or a bad trade for Guilford County.