Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young SC says it is a time­ly warn­ing for Trinidad and To­ba­go that New York yes­ter­day be­came the first US state to halt the con­struc­tion of large new da­ta cen­tres be­cause of con­cerns about their im­pact on elec­tric­i­ty costs, wa­ter sup­plies and host com­mu­ni­ties.

Young was re­fer­ring to a Reuters re­port pub­lished yes­ter­day stat­ing that New York has im­posed a one-year mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of large new da­ta cen­tres as con­cerns grow that the fa­cil­i­ties dri­ving the ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence boom are in­creas­ing pow­er costs, strain­ing wa­ter sup­plies and bur­den­ing lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.

Last week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the sign­ing of mem­o­ran­dums of un­der­stand­ing to be­gin dis­cus­sions on large-scale da­ta cen­tre de­vel­op­ment and sup­port­ing in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing a pro­posed 300-megawatt fa­cil­i­ty as well as a 150MW ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in­fra­struc­ture and da­ta cen­tre project, with po­ten­tial long-term ex­pan­sion to 500MW.

How­ev­er, the Reuters re­port not­ed that New York is now at the fore­front of a grow­ing na­tion­al de­bate in the Unit­ed States over how to man­age the in­fra­struc­ture re­quired to sup­port ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence.

“While tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies are rac­ing to build new da­ta cen­tres, law­mak­ers and reg­u­la­tors in dozens of states are weigh­ing mea­sures to lim­it their ef­fect on elec­tric­i­ty grids, util­i­ty bills and lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties,” the re­port stat­ed.

New York’s one-year con­struc­tion ban will ap­ply to da­ta cen­tres us­ing 50 megawatts or more.

The re­port added: “The ex­pan­sion of da­ta cen­tres in the US is dri­ving up pow­er de­mand—and elec­tric­i­ty bills—across large swaths of the coun­try, draw­ing lo­cal and po­lit­i­cal back­lash. On­ly one in three Amer­i­cans ap­prove of the fast pace of da­ta cen­tre con­struc­tion and most would op­pose build­ing one in their own com­mu­ni­ty, ac­cord­ing to a re­cent Reuters/Ip­sos poll. Dozens of state leg­is­la­tures have in­tro­duced bills to rein in the ef­fects of da­ta cen­tres on pow­er bills and the en­vi­ron­ment. New York is the first to en­act a full mora­to­ri­um.”

New York Gov­er­nor Kathy Hochul said that “as da­ta cen­tre de­vel­op­ment threat­ens to hike up util­i­ty bills, de­plete nat­ur­al re­sources, and cre­ate un­cer­tain­ty for New York­ers,” it is her re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to take ac­tion.

Com­ment­ing on the re­port yes­ter­day, Young said: “This is a time­ly warn­ing for Trinidad and To­ba­go. Our elec­tric­i­ty grid and wa­ter pro­duc­tion can­not sup­port any large-scale (hy­per­scale) da­ta cen­tres. We al­so need to know what con­ces­sions are be­ing asked for.

“Our elec­tric­i­ty is high­ly sub­sidised and T&TEC has been un­able to pay NGC for the gas used to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty for years. Bil­lions of dol­lars are owed.

“There are many le­git­i­mate ques­tions and con­cerns that re­quire an­swers and de­tails to be pro­vid­ed by the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing who is re­al­ly win­ning in this.”

Sev­er­al busi­ness op­er­a­tors, in­clud­ing some in south Trinidad, al­so called for town hall meet­ings to al­low mem­bers of the pub­lic to ob­tain in­for­ma­tion and bet­ter un­der­stand the im­pli­ca­tions of the pro­posed projects.

“While the plans sound in­ter­est­ing, there should be in­de­pen­dent ex­perts in­form­ing the pub­lic. Peo­ple should be told what the en­vi­ron­men­tal ef­fects of these projects will be, right down to every sin­gle car­bon atom, and then let cit­i­zens de­cide. Where are the views of the en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists, the EMA and oth­ers?” the busi­ness op­er­a­tors said.

They added: “We’re see­ing re­ports from the US where is­sues have arisen over projects like these, in­clud­ing this week in Geor­gia, where home­own­ers were faced with sell­ing their prop­er­ties or hav­ing them ac­quired by the state to help pow­er AI da­ta cen­tres. Cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go would ap­pre­ci­ate be­ing able to hear the facts from ex­perts. Let peo­ple ask the ques­tions they want about any­thing that will be placed in their com­mu­ni­ty. If we have to live with it, we have to know about it.”