—
May 13, 2026, 3:48 p.m. ET
Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed a bill to subject data centers to increased regulation in Florida.
SB 484, introduced by Republican state Senator Bryan Avila, lays out detailed requirements for the construction and operation of data centers, focusing on electricity and water usage.
Proposed Florida data centers have already faced rejection in the communities meant to house them — and the governor recently signed a bill to subject them to increased regulation.
SB 484, introduced by Republican State Sen. Bryan Avila, lays out detailed requirements for the construction and operation of data centers, focusing on electricity and water usage. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill at Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland on May 7.
“So, this makes sure that local governments are ultimately in control about how their communities are developing vis-à-vis these hyper-scale data centers,” DeSantis said. “It also includes strict definitions of large-scale data centers so that costs are not permitted to be passed on to consumers.”
Data centers are popping up all over the state, often meeting with opposition from residents of nearby communities.
Recent examples include a complex intended to be built on a 200-acre property in Loxahatchee, a facility planned in Fort Meade on a 1,300-acre site and a data center in Miami’s Westview neighborhood. The all received pushback, some of it related to concerns surrounding potential increases in pollution and power costs.
“When data centers are built, they raise utility rates for nearby communities,” a study from the University of Michigan states. “As demand surges, utility companies often pass the costs of infrastructure upgrades and increased energy procurement onto residents and small businesses through higher rates.”
The bill says that data centers and other large-load utility customers “may present unique planning, infrastructure, and compatibility considerations,” adding that these issues should be addressed through local “comprehensive planning” and “land-development regulations.”
Additionally, the bill states that when one class of utility customer requires “uniquely large electrical loads at a single location, it imposes a disproportionate risk on the other ratepayers of this state.” As a result, the Florida Public Service Commission should enforce rate structures to prevent costs for serving large-load customers from being shifted onto all ratepayers.
The bill defines a large-load customer as one that requires a monthly peak load of 50 megawatts or more of electricity.
The impacts of resource-intensive data centers
Worries have emerged regarding the environmental impacts of large data centers, given that the facilities can be resource-intensive — particularly in terms of water and energy.
“Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons per day, equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people,” according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. “With larger and new AI-focused data centers, water consumption is increasing alongside energy usage and carbon emissions.”
According to the World Resources Institute, data centers can also contribute to noise pollution and increased competition for land, and have frequently been situated in marginalized communities.
“A national review of roughly 700 data centers across the country found that nearly half are in census tracts with above-median environmental burdens, such as air pollution, park access and water pollution, as measured by the Centers for Disease Control’s Environmental Justice Index,” according to the WRI article, written by Carla Walker and Ian Goldsmith. “Many were located in areas with social vulnerability indicators, such as poverty and lower education levels.”
How many data centers are already in Florida?
According to the World Resources Institute, Virginia is the state that houses the most data centers, with 566 in the state as of January 2026. Florida ranks 10th with most data centers in the U.S., with 107.
If you want to see where Florida’s data centers are located, you can use the interactive map on the Data Center Map website. There are 103 Florida data centers on the map as of April 22, 2026.
Sarah Perkel is a South Florida Connect Reporter for the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Connect team. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday day by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY.
