Overview:
Covington is the latest predominantly Black community confronting the environmental costs of the AI boom. Residents say a temporary power plant serving a data center began taking shape — and generating electricity — before state regulators had signed off.
The pattern is becoming a little too familiar. The artificial intelligence boom is fueling an unprecedented demand for data centers, and those proposals and projects keep landing in Black communities.
Supporters — often including elected officials — tell residents the projects will bring investment, jobs, and badly needed tax revenue. Residents in Memphis, Mississippi and Alabama organize and push back, warning of increased air pollution, strained infrastructure and decisions already made before they’ve had a chance to say no.
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This time, it’s happening in Covington, Georgia, a little more than 30 miles southeast of Atlanta. There, residents are fighting a so-called “pop-up” data center, powered by nearly three dozen diesel and natural gas generators, that’s intended to operate temporarily.
Jumping the Gun
But opponents in Covington and surrounding Newton County — both with substantial Black populations — say problems began before the first permit was ever approved. The generators arrived first, and officials authorized them later.
VoltaGrid, a Texas-based firm, is building the power plant, which consists of 33 natural gas-powered turbines; they generate electricity for a nearby data center developed by a separate company called Serverfarm. While Georgia has seen extensive data center development during the AI boom, this is the first pop-up plant to be built in the state.
Communities deserve transparency and equal protection when massive industrial projects are proposed in our neighborhoods.
Maurice Carter, PRESIDENT, Sustainable Newton
Much like Musk’s now-infamous ad-hoc power plants in the greater Memphis area, the VoltaGrid project also had permitting issues and conflicts with state regulators. The power plant is not only near residential areas of Covington, but is close to a nature preserve and a municipal reservoir that supplies the county’s drinking water.
VoltaGrid applied for state air permits, as required under the Clean Air Act, to build the 90-megawatt plant last year. But in June, residents noticed that six of the 33 turbines at the power plant were already up and running before permits had been issued.
A similar problem exists at the data center: resident groups fighting the overall project allege that 36 backup diesel generators were installed before Serverfarm proposed installing 37 generators.
Violating the Law
Aside from permitting problems, the project may also run afoul of state utility laws. Because the two projects are being developed and would be owned by two separate businesses, they may violate Georgia’s Territorial Electric Service Act and the Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act.
“VoltaGrid and Serverfarm tried to obscure their full impact on air quality in our community by seeking air permits as two distinct business operations, ignoring foundational tenets of Georgia’s energy laws to do so,” Maurice Carter, the president of Sustainable Newton, one of the local organizations fighting the projects, said in a joint statement with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“Communities deserve transparency and equal protection when massive industrial projects are proposed in our neighborhoods,” he said. “We are relying on Georgia regulators to ensure these laws are fully enforced.”
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In early July, the state Environmental Protection Division hit VoltaGrid with a stop-work order, blocking the project until the state issues the permit. Following that action, SELC filed a petition on behalf of Sustainable Newton with the Georgia Public Service Commission asking for it to make a ruling on the lawfulness of VoltaGrid’s project.
The petition is still pending.
