Data centers used 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023. For most of the 2010s, their energy use stayed nearly flat even as computing exploded, because efficiency kept pace with growth.[1]

As for your bill: a 2026 study by energy economists at the Electric Power Research Institute and Watershed tested the claim directly and found the opposite. From 2015 to 2024, data center growth modestly lowered average residential electricity rates, because durable new demand spreads the grid’s enormous fixed costs across more kilowatt-hours. The average customer paid about 6% less from 2019 to 2024 than they would have without the buildout.[10]

New facilities don’t appear overnight. Utilities plan for them years ahead through formal resource plans: Georgia regulators approved Georgia Power’s expansion with explicit protections for existing ratepayers if data center demand shifts,[11] and Dominion completed 123 transmission projects and 13 new substations in Virginia in the first half of 2024 alone. Those upgrades strengthen the grid for everyone on it.[12]

Data centers are paying for new American power plants: Microsoft’s 20-year agreement is restarting Three Mile Island Unit 1 (835 MW of carbon-free nuclear),[13] Amazon contracted up to 1,920 MW of nuclear power from Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna plant through 2042,[14] and Meta’s partnership with Silicon Ranch has built roughly 1.5 GW of new solar across Georgia and Tennessee.[15]

Backup diesel generators sit idle almost all year. EPA rules cap maintenance and readiness testing at 100 hours per year, require ultra-low-sulfur fuel, and hold the engines to federal emission standards. They run for real only when the grid itself fails.[16]

All U.S. data centers combined directly consumed about 17 billion gallons of water in 2023,[1] roughly 0.02%of the nation’s daily freshwater withdrawals.[17] For scale, America’s golf courses apply about 31 times more water each year than every data center in the country consumes.[20]

Modern closed-loop cooling is filled once and recirculates the same water indefinitely. Microsoft made zero-water-for-cooling the standard for all new designs from August 2024, saving more than 125 million liters per year per facility versus older designs.[18]

The difference is dramatic in practice: a closed-loop campus in Wisconsin peaks at about 22,000 gallons a day, the water use of roughly 65 homes, versus millions of gallons a day for the older evaporative design it replaced.[19]

No facility may discharge untreated wastewater. Under the Clean Water Act, cooling water either flows to a municipal treatment plant under local pretreatment rules or requires a federal NPDES permit with enforceable limits.[21]

About a third of the world’s data center capacity is operated on-premises by enterprises: banks, hospitals, insurers, manufacturers, and government agencies that run their own facilities because regulators require tight control of sensitive data.[9]

The U.S. military requires its most sensitive unclassified data to be stored in facilities on U.S. soil, administered only by U.S. persons. That is a standard only American data centers can meet.[41]

Your county government, your bank, your hospital network, and your kids’ school district all rent capacity in the same kinds of buildings. When a data center comes to town, it is serving Main Street as much as Silicon Valley.[9]

Loudoun County, Virginia, the data center capital of the world, collected an estimated $895 million in data center taxes in FY2025, about 38% of its general fund, and earns $26 in revenue for every $1 in county services the facilities require. That surplus let the county cut its property tax rate every year for a decade.[24] Neighboring Prince William County took in $280 million in 2024, up nearly 70% in one year.[25]

Virginia’s independent legislative auditor found the industry supports 74,000 jobs and $9.1 billion in annual GDP in that state alone.[26] A typical build employs about 1,700 local construction workers, then supports roughly 157 ongoing local jobs with above-average wages.[3]

Operators invest directly in their towns: Meta has granted more than $94 million to data center communities for schools and local projects,[28] Microsoft’s TechSpark program has secured $125 million in community funding,[30] and Google has given more than $66 million to Georgia organizations alongside $1.2 billion invested in Douglas County.[29]

They train the next generation of tradesmen: Meta co-built a Data Center Institute with a North Carolina community college,[31] and Google’s skilled-trades initiative is putting $50 million toward training electricians and infrastructure workers across the country.[32]

Data centers are among the quietest industrial land uses. No smoke stacks, no shift-change traffic, no heavy truck streams. Host counties hold them to residential noise limits: Loudoun County caps sound at 55 decibels at the property line, quieter than a normal conversation.[22]

For context, the NIH puts normal conversation at 60 to 70 dBA and notes sound at or below 70 dBA is unlikely to cause any harm. Highway traffic, lawn equipment, and restaurants are all louder than a compliant data center at its fence.[23]

And they are famously undemanding neighbors in every other respect: Loudoun County calculates that data centers require just $1 in county services for every $26 in taxes they pay. No crowded schools, no rush-hour surge, no strain on police and fire.[24]