The Aberdeen City Council held its first of three proposed hearing regarding creating a city ordinance governing data centers.
This meeting was meant to be informative from someone within the industry. The next meeting is intended to be for businesses potentially impacted by any proposed data centers. The third meeting will be for the public to give its input.
Despite this, the council did allow one citizen to speak during the open mic period. Aberdeen resident Janelle Meier expressed her concerns regarding potential data centers coming to Aberdeen…
The council heard from Scott Sandal, vice president of client services for Sunbird Software a data center company. When asked about data centers being good neighbors in a community, he says that is a new development within the industry…
Chris Nelson with the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission joined the meeting via a zoom call. He explained what the PUC has heard regarding data centers usage of electricity to operate…
District 23 State Senator Mark Lapka also spoke about SB 135 passed by the legislature this past session. It is colloquially known as a “data center bill of rights.”
Senator Lapka says he’s confident SB 135 will protect consumers from rising energy costs as data center projects enter South Dakota, but also said this is uncharted territory..
The next hearing regarding data centers, related specifically to business interests will be held August 31st. The general public hearing will be held September 14th.
