AdvertisementIt’s not just Northern Virginia. In Georgia, the state legislature recently passed legislation that would place a two-year moratorium on tax incentives allotted to the data center industry. And in Arizona, Illinois, and Arkansas, officials have passed laws to either suspend data center development or further restrict where they can be built.Get TrendlinesA business newsletter from Globe Columnist Larry Edelman covering the trends shaping business and the economy in Boston and beyond.“We have to make it worth our while,” Deshundra Jefferson, chair of Prince William’s county board, said about her board’s vote to increase the computer and peripherals tax rate to $3.70 per $100 of assessed value, noting that it’s comparable to what neighboring localities charge.With residents on the county’s western end angry about noise from some data centers and the power lines required to supply them with electricity, Jefferson said, “I don’t feel we’ve been getting our money’s worth.”The more stringent approaches to an industry that has been a major source of tax revenue for counties and cities come amid concerns about its impacts on the nation’s electric grid, with individual data centers consuming as much as 50 times more electricity than a typical office building, according to the Department of Energy.AdvertisementIn the portion of the grid that covers the mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest, a projected gap in available energy — driven by the industry’s growth and a wave of anticipated fossil-fuel plant closures — prompted grid operators to ask several coal plants to continue operating as part of a $5.2 billion plan that will leave several hundred miles of new power lines in Virginia and three neighboring states.Such impacts have placed the data center industry under greater scrutiny, even as many communities continue to woo data center companies as a source of economic development.Virginia’s General Assembly recently launched a study of the industry’s impacts — both positive and negative — after a host of bills seeking to further regulate da …
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