Bensalem Township’s Council members had a lengthy discussion about a draft ordinance for data centers in the township. The discussion of data centers was first brought up at their June meeting. The biggest takeaway from the discussion is that if in fact a company wanted to build, develop, and or move an AI Data Center into the township, it would be relegated to Bensalem’s GI district; which is where most of the municipalities industrial buildings with loud machinery and equipment are located.
Council President Edward Tokmajian Jr thanked Solicitor Joseph Pizzo for all the hard work he put into making of the draft ordinance.
“Thank you Joseph Pizzo for the work you put into making this happen. The strength’s that I noted the conditional use, the noise control, emergency planning, utility and water, construction traffic, it’s a significant lengthy document that you put together.” Tokmajian stated.
Pizzo told council that a significant amount of work went into the draft, with Buildings and Commission Director Ken Farrell helping out as well.
“It’s funny but the old saying a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, and the first step at times for us was difficult because we were trying to which direction to take this, once we got there then it became a little easier to insert various provisions. We relied on a lot of resources, some of which I mentioned when we were considering adopting of accretive amendment, and the number of resources subsequent.” Pizzo said
Pizzo told the members chances are the township is going to deal with a situation where someone will want to move into one of the township’s 700 foot square buildings to place a data center, as opposed to build one from the ground up. He also mentioned noise was a big factor in the decisions made in drafting ordinance.
“The noise or the sound that could potentially be generated by one of these facilities particularly close to other buildings or residential areas made that a driving factor in a good bit of what you have in the document in front of you. The proposed ordinance would relegate these facilities to the township’s GI district, which is our heaviest industrial district where all sorts of uses that can make noise or odors are relegated.”
Pizzo said the ordinance would make it so that any company seeking place a data center would have to do so in Bensalem’s GI district, which is where most of Bensalem’s industrial buildings with loud machinery and equipment are located.
He also said the new ordinance, if passed, would have it so that data centers can’t produce their own power on site.
“By keeping the generation for these facilities off site, we’re cutting into and taking away opportunities for facilities, equipment and the like that are going to impact quality of life for the properties around the data center.” Pizzo said.
Anther ordinance condition to keep noise down is by having the cooling stations not be able to be mounted on the roof of the data centers, which in Pizzo’s own words would cause the noise to travel farther.
“We’re not doing this so that we’re opening the door to data centers, quite the contrary. We’re doing this so that if someone comes in without these sort of regulations, they can pretty much go anywhere they want arguing that the township doesn’t have a comprehensive set of regulations.” Pizzo explained.
Council Vice President Jesse Sloane asked Pizzo how this ordinance would affect the cost of public utilities.
Pizzo brought up Governor Josh Shapiro’s executive order which required data centers to absorb the cost of utility electricity as opposed to pass off the bill to residents.
Sloane then brought up the idea of a rating limit on how much power the data centers could draw.
Credit: Amazon
“There should be a rating limit for how much power they can draw. I wouldn’t want a data center going in and then all of the sudden they upgrade their system to draw more power, basically blowing through the conditions made for the construction of the data center.” Sloane told Pizzo.
Pizzo said this was factored in and taken care in the draft ordinance requiring an annual electricity demand for the data center.
“The electric service provider and any off-site energy source providers serving the data center, the energy storage capacity of the data center, the proposed sources of onsite and offsite backup power, and a written certification of all of the information as required by the sections we just outlined.”
Pizzo would later go onto state a similar ordinance requirement for water waste, with data centers providing how much water they plan on using, using said water from a public water facility and not a well, and a sanitary sewer collection plan.
Going back to the topic of electricity usage, Councilman Joseph Knowles said a concern he had was the data centers getting all their electricity from PECO, causing rates to go up in the area.
“We’re obviously thinking about that, and so I don’t think the township has the ability to govern what PECO does or doesn’t do.” Pizzo told Knowles.
Governor Josh Shapiro signing the Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) executive order in August
Credit: Commonwealth Media Services
“Our belief is that we can require that the developer comes in here with certifications from PECO and an energy usage plan identifying all the power that’s gonna be needed to operate this, where it’s going to come from, and certifications that PECO has the ability before this goes into place to serve all of that. The implication is that if PECO has all of that, it doesn’t need to increase it’s electric generation to serve either this facility or this part of the township, then rates shouldn’t go up as a result of the data center.” Pizzo continued.
Councilman Joseph Wenzel Jr suggested the township should allow data centers to generate their own power because PECO will ultimately increase the price of electricity for residents. Wenzel suggested instead that data centers use a SSR to power their centers instead.
“I know that around the country they are using SSR’s which are small modular reactors that power them. We should allow them to power their own equipment up to 90%. Anything over that 90% can go back into PECO or the community.” Wenzel said
During public comment, resident Sandy Rodgers asked the township what buffers there would be for noise between residents and the data centers, while also bringing up the fact that 90 acres were available in Trevose and being marketed as the perfect place for a data center.
Pizzo said explained there is a setback of 500 feet from the street, 1,000 feet from any residential area, and 1,000 feet from any residential district.
As for the open area in Trevose, Pizzo told Rodgers that a data center wouldn’t be allowed there because it’s an LI district, as opposed to a GI.
Anther resident Diana B asked if the township could look into having the data centers use solar power energy.
Sloane told Diana that this wouldn’t be possible due to lack of real estate in the township.
Council President Tokmajian closed discussion about the data center draft with no action required.
The next move is told advertise the ordinance change and schedule a public hearing to be held during at an as yet to be determined future Council meeting.
Credit: Submitted