Innis: Call It An 'Innovation Hub' — It's Still A Data Center

By Dan Innis, NH Journal

Last week, I walked my fields at Trails End Farm in Bradford as the sun came up over the hills.

It’s the kind of quiet that reminds you why people move to New Hampshire — and why those of us lucky enough to live here fight so hard to protect it.

That’s why I strongly support Gov. Ayotte’s proposed moratorium on new data centers in New Hampshire.

Across the country — from Colorado to Virginia, from Texas to right here in New Hampshire — massive new data center facilities are popping up. Recently, proposals for new data center projects in Nottingham and Bow have received a lot of attention and public scrutiny — rightfully so. Here’s what the data show. Data centers are among the most power-intensive facilities ever built. A single large-scale facility can consume as much electricity as a small city. When those facilities plug into New Hampshire’s grid, they drive up demand. When demand outpaces supply, ratepayers pay more. Every family heating their home. Every small business running its equipment. Every farmer keeping the lights on in the barn. They all pay more so that a data center — excuse me, an “innovation hub” — can run its servers around the clock.

New Hampshire has a brand. We call it the New Hampshire Advantage. Low taxes. Common-sense regulation. A quality of life worth protecting. That advantage doesn’t survive if we allow our energy infrastructure to be overwhelmed by facilities that offer almost nothing to our communities in return — no meaningful jobs, no tax base that justifies the strain, no benefit to the Granite Staters who actually live here.

Gov. Ayotte is right to pump the brakes. A moratorium isn’t anti-business. It’s pro-New Hampshire. It says: We will think carefully before we commit our grid, our ratepayers and our communities to something we cannot easily undo. That is conservative governance. That is good stewardship. Any farmer will tell you — you don’t exhaust the land for a single season’s profit.

Because apparently, “data center” has become a dirty word — and when a dirty word starts costing you a permit, the instinct in some corners is simple: Find a cleaner word. So now, Granite Staters, you may start hearing about proposed “server farms” or “innovation hubs” coming to a town near you. Don’t be fooled.

An innovation hub that requires hundreds of megawatts of power, consumes millions of gallons of water for cooling, generates little local employment and plugs directly into our electrical grid is not an innovation hub. It’s a data center. Calling it something else doesn’t change what it draws from our communities — or what it leaves behind.

I’ve spent my career in business and academia studying how markets work. I’ve run hotels. I’ve taught marketing. And I know a rebranding campaign when I see one. This is one of the most transparent examples I’ve encountered in public life. The product hasn’t changed. Only the label has. And the label is designed to get past the very guardrails that Gov. Ayotte and this legislature are trying to put in place to protect New Hampshire’s ratepayers and energy grid.

My message to those who want to sneak a data center past a moratorium by slapping a new name on it is simple: We see you. The people of New Hampshire see you. And we are not going to let a branding exercise substitute for honest policy.

If you have a facility that draws industrial-scale power from our grid, it will be evaluated as what it is — not what you’ve chosen to call it this week.

New Hampshire’s energy future is too important to leave to clever marketing. Our ratepayers deserve honesty. Our grid deserves protection. And our communities deserve leaders who won’t be talked out of common sense by people with a thesaurus and a permit application.

I’m one of those leaders. And I’m not going anywhere.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.