When it comes to ripple effects, the AI data center surge is no pebble in the proverbial pond — it’s more of a hyperscaler-sized boulder. Here’s one aspect we’ve been watching: the implications for new long-range power lines planned for energy transition and grid reliability. People see the value of investing in upgrading the electric grid, but what happens when concerns are raised that construction of a new power line could attract an AI data center along with it?
The Upper Midwest will be a bellwether, as it’s seeing both data center proposals and a major set of new long-distance power lines. In recent research with residents in rural parts of the region, where many of the plans are landing, we found that the specter of a new power line luring a large data center does reduce support for the transmission. On the other hand, residents also want more reliable and lower-cost electricity, and those grid upgrade benefits are powerful counterpoints. It also makes a difference when people hear about communities successfully opposing data centers, or that their states could enact strong guardrails on data center development. Here’s a closer look at what we found:
The Midwest electricity grid operator, MISO, didn’t plan its 24 new regional power lines to serve data centers. MISO planned the lines years before the recent data center surge, designing them to alleviate grid congestion, connect new energy generation, and keep the lights on into the future. But does that history matter to residents considering the new power lines now?
We found that it is good to convey the backstory — it helps maintain support for the new transmission if residents are also hearing that a data center might pounce. Make it clear that the power lines in question were planned by the grid operator to serve residents, not data centers, and that they’re needed for reliability and affordability. As we’ll see next, emphasis on those two outcomes is important..
Electricity outages are becoming more frequent, lasting longer, and costing a lot of money. Across rural residents in our study, more reliable electric service proved the strongest reason to support construction of MISO’s new power lines, despite the potential for data center interest.
The messaging that works well — with rural Republicans and Democrats alike — emphasizes the aging grid, the strain of more weather extremes, unmet growing demand, and the risk of blackouts that will only get worse if the new lines aren’t built. As a New York Times guest essay recently pointed out, “There aren’t many 120-year-old machines that most Americans use every day — but the power grid is one of them.” People want their electricity to work, so they want the grid maintained.
It goes without saying that the cost of living is a top-of-mind concern, and rural Midwesterners in our study were persuaded that the new power lines will help deliver savings on future bills. It worked well to convey the net savings on household electric bills the new lines will provide, and to explain how it’s due to preventing costly blackouts and avoiding the need for some expensive new power plants. Reducing grid congestion to tap more lowest-cost power is also a key factor, something we explain in this short animated video.
Another effective approach is to note that if a data center proposal does crop up, communities can resist. The messaging we tested stated that “communities around the country have blocked or delayed $64 billion worth of data center projects, so we can support new power lines, and still say ‘no’ to a data center.” This was nearly as effective in shoring up support for new power lines as preventing blackouts.
Asserting that states should enact guardrails for data centers found traction too: “For any new data center proposals that may crop up, our state should require that data centers pay all their own costs so they don’t raise residents’ bills, and that they follow strict guardrails on water use and noise.” Making data centers use clean energy instead of fossil fuels did not fare quite as well in helping maintain rural Midwesterners’ support for new power lines in the face of a data center coming in. It isn’t counterproductive, still moving the needle in the right direction, but just not strongly.
Fielding this research well after the start of the war in the Middle East, we also explored messaging pegged to that context: “The new power lines are an investment in using our domestic energy sources to power our lives. Reducing our use of foreign energy is especially important now, with global oil and gas prices soaring amid the war in the Middle East.”
Here is where we saw a stark partisan difference — rural Republicans responded really well to this version of the energy independence theme, while rural Democrats did not.
Someone’s prior experience with infrastructure projects or proposals in their area matters in how they will feel about the next one. We found that those who said they feel generally positive about transportation or energy projects they’d seen in their area were twice as supportive of building the new power lines planned by MISO.
With something as fast-moving as the data center surge, it will be important to keep updating research — both on views around the hyperscalers themselves, as well as their ripple effects — as new experiences continue to shape public views.
