9.14.23 Siting council will not hold public hearing on Waterford data center

Siting council will not hold public hearing on Waterford data center
September 14, 2023 8:11 pm • Last Updated: September 14, 2023
8:24 pm
By Daniel Drainville Day Staff Writer
d.drainville@theday.com
Waterford ― The Connecticut Siting Council decided Thursday not
to hold a public hearing on a controversial petition from Millstone
owner Dominion Energy Nuclear Connecticut that would modify the
boundaries of the Millstone property for use by proposed data
center.
During the virtual meeting, council members voted 3-2 to deny the
seven requests for a public hearing.
After making a motion to deny the hearing, Councilor Robert
Silvestri said his understanding of the petition from Dominion is
that it is seeking to adjust its boundaries by removing about 55
acres from what was previously the power station’s 546 acres.
Approval of the construction of the data center would instead be up
to the town, he said.
“I appreciate the comments and requests that we have seen from
the public, but from what I have determined, (the requests) are
really focused on a data center and a switch yard.”
In February, the town agreed to a deal with NE Edge LLC that
signaled it was open to the idea of hosting two two-story data
buildings that would provide approximately 1.5 million square feet
of storage for cloud and data servers. The centers would be supplied
with energy from Millstone.
NE Edge would construct a third building, a switchyard, that would
receive power from Millstone and distribute it to the data center.

Councilor John Morissette also voted to deny the requests for a
public hearing, agreeing with Silvestri that the data center and
switch yard were not related to the boundary change request.
But he did raise questions about the boundary change.
“Does it impact security? Why was the original 55 acres included in
the original site as certificated? Was there a thought back then that
the site would be used for another generator?” he asked.
He said those concerns could be answered through additional
questions posed to Dominion by the siting council.
“I don’t think a hearing would help, primarily because I think it
would get bogged down with the data center,“ Morissette said,
adding that a hearing, if held, would have to be limited to
discussion of the boundary request and ”the data center would be
off limits.“
Council members set a deadline for a decision on the boundary
request for Jan. 24, 2024.
d.drainville@theday.com