Data center power boom speeds past public oversight, Reuters finds

A natural-gas power plant built for a nearby data center in central Ohio shows how the AI boom is racing ahead of public review. The Apollo Power Generation Facility was filed with state regulators on November 5, 2025, approved on February 3, 2026, and permitted through an accelerated process that bypassed the kind of extended hearings and environmental scrutiny that normally accompany a large power project.

The plant is planned for Middleton Township, Wood County, near Mercer Road and Middleton Pike, west of Columbus. It is designed as a 350-megawatt behind-the-meter facility that will not connect to the regional grid, and it will be built and operated by Will-Power OH, LLC. Ohio records show the project was handled under a Letter of Notification review, a fast-track route that allowed state officials to approve it without a conventional public hearing. By the time the draft air permit became public, construction had already started.

That compressed timeline has fueled concern among residents and environmental advocates who say they were left with little notice about air quality, climate impacts and other local effects. At a public comment meeting on the draft air permit, opponents raised objections about greenhouse-gas emissions and cumulative pollution. The broader worry is not just one plant, but a new pattern: facilities built to serve single data centers are being planned and completed in weeks or months, while communities next door often learn about them only after major decisions are already made.

The Ohio project sits inside a larger surge in private power for data centers. Cleanview data cited in related reporting identified at least 57 off-grid U.S. power plants proposed or under construction to serve individual data centers. A February 2026 Cleanview analysis found 46 data centers with 56 gigawatts of planned behind-the-meter capacity, while a later version counted 59 projects with about 90 gigawatts of announced capacity. Cleanview said 90% of those projects were announced since the start of 2025, a sign of how quickly the market is moving.

The rush reflects a practical bottleneck as much as a technological one. JLL says average waits for grid connections in primary data-center markets now exceed four years, pushing developers toward private generation that can be built faster and kept out of public view. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers have warned that off-the-grid natural-gas generation for AI is one of the largest under-examined air-quality risks in the country. In Ohio, where officials have used the Letter of Notification process to speed Apollo through review, the result is a growing energy buildout that can reshape neighborhoods before the public has time to weigh the cost.