NORTH MANKATO — North Mankato is one of several cities that has been eyed as a home for major data centers, but city officials say nothing is in the immediate works for one to come here.
Information on who is planning the development and other details remain unknown as the city has signed a non-disclosure agreement with a data center developer that prevents city staff from discussing details of the project.
If it comes to fruition, the project would be in the Northport Industrial Center on the northwest edge of the city.
City Administrator Kevin McCann said different developers have looked at the city for years as a possible data center site, along with looking at a lot of other cities in the state.
Community Development Director Mike Fischer said there are no firm plans by any data center developer. He said no one has purchased any land for one, and the city hasn’t yet looked at what impact a data center would have and what services it would need.
Data centers, which are often massive buildings full of computing equipment, consume a lot of electricity and a lot of water, which is used for cooling and humidifying.
Senior North Mankato City Councilor Billy Steiner said Fischer isn’t able to tell him or other council members much about any proposal because of the non-disclosure Fischer signed on behalf of city staff.
Steiner said that if a project does move forward, details will be brought to the council for consideration and public hearings and input before it would be approved by the council.
“We’d welcome any big development. It sounds like it would be a big thing with a lot of new employees coming in,” Steiner said.
McCann said that sometimes when developers come to them with a tentative project they will require the city staff to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which keeps staff from disclosing details about the developer and what they are looking to do until and unless it becomes a firm proposal.
Local governments in Minnesota are legally allowed to sign such agreements. But some open government advocates say the non-disclosures harm transparency.
New large data centers and the huge amount of electricity they consume are becoming contentious around the state and country.
More data centers are needed because of the ever-growing amount of data generated by modern technology, including increased internet usage, cloud computing, streaming services, AI applications and more.
Facebook’s parent company is building Minnesota’s first mega data center in Rosemount to house its fast-growing need for computing muscle, The Minnesota Star Tribune reports.
Amazon and Microsoft bought land for large data centers near Xcel Energy’s soon-retiring coal plant in Becker. A Colorado company called Tract has advanced a project in Farmington and is eyeing colossal sites in Rosemount and Cannon Falls. Other companies are looking to possibly build data centers in North Mankato, Chaska, Faribault and Hampton.
If built, this crop of data centers could demand as much electricity as every home in Minnesota, the newspaper reports.
Some Farmington residents have complained they were not aware of the proposal and still don’t know details because of the city’s non-disclosure agreement.
The project is to include a 2.5-million square-foot development composed of several buildings, just 250 feet from a residential neighborhood, The Minnesota Star Tribune reports.
A top executive with Xcel Energy told MinnPost that data center growth will not prevent it from meeting the state’s 100% clean electricity law by 2040. But he said more demand and closures of coal power plants means Xcel will likely need to extend the life of natural gas power plants into the 2030s.
Some data center companies are paying to revive nuclear plants or investing in emerging technology for smaller reactors to help meet the increased electricity demand.