Good for us!
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
With little fanfare or controversy, and no public comment, town officials unanimously approved the state’s second municipal-wide ban on data centers, and the first ban on battery energy storage projects.
While there is currently no developer proposing a data
center or battery storage project for Charlestown, the Town Council was spurred
to both based on growing controversy in Quonset and Smithfield.
And while the town is likely a poor candidate for data
center projects — like much of southern Rhode Island because residents rely on
private wells — council members were aware enough to say never say never.
“Data centers gobble up the land,” council member Bonnie Van
Slyke, the prime sponsor of the ordinance, said at the Aug. 11 Town Council
meeting. “They use a lot of electricity, they need a lot of water to cool the
systems. They’re something we should be looking at very carefully if we want to
allow them going forward.”
The ordinance was unanimously backed by the Planning
Commission last month.
Data centers, among other new development, have been a hot
topic in even provincial Rhode Island this year. These supersized developments
most commonly look like windowless big-box stores, but instead of merchandise,
they are filled with vast arrays of computer banks running at all hours of the
day and night.
Data centers seemingly sprung up overnight following the
pandemic, with the rise of artificial intelligence programs that require
increasingly more and more computer power to function.

















