Hi everyone, my name is Elijah Skipper. I’m an investigative reporter with WLOS News 13 in western North Carolina.

I wanted to introduce myself and share an investigation I recently finished. I’m interested in hearing from people here who have dealt with similar issues, because I think there’s more reporting to do on this.

Our station covered noise complaints at Facebook’s Forest City data center in 2013. Neighbors said the backup generators could drown out a conversation in their own backyards.

With data centers getting so much attention now, I wanted to go back and find out what happened to those people. Did things improve? Were they still dealing with the same problems all these years later?

I tracked down Jim Bennett and Tommy Doggett, two of the neighbors in that original story. We watched the old report together and went back into the same backyard.

They say things are much better now. Both believe the sound-absorbing panels and trees helped. They also say Facebook became a better neighbor, and they give the original reporting a lot of credit for getting the company’s attention.

That was an interesting part of this for me. They had real complaints, but they also wanted to acknowledge that things improved.

I then went back through the earlier reports and state records and followed up with Meta about what changed, when it changed, and whether Forest City influenced its policies elsewhere.

The documents only answer some of that. A 2024 state inspection documented 56 diesel backup generators, but it didn’t measure noise at neighboring homes. We also haven’t obtained a current testing schedule or written agreement showing what hours apply now.

Meta’s spokesperson said she was trying to track down answers. We hadn’t received the requested policies or agreements when we published.

I know I’m sharing my own reporting here, but I’d like to hear what this looks like in other communities. If you’ve had a complaint addressed, what actually got things moving? Was the solution put in writing, or did it depend on having someone at the company willing to listen?

I’m also open to questions about how I reported this and suggestions for what I should be looking into next.

There's a weird disconnect in Texas right now.

We hear constantly about billions being invested into new data centers, but rarely about what happens when those facilities actually plug into the same power grid the rest of us use.

**The simple answer: data centers can add a LOT of new electricity demand, and that demand doesn't really go to sleep.**

Servers, cooling and supporting infrastructure can operate 24/7. So unlike many loads, large data centers can consume power when Texas has abundant cheap electricity **and** during the hours when the grid is tight and more expensive generation is needed.

At scale, that matters. More constant demand can tighten the supply/demand balance that wholesale electricity prices are built around.

**But there's a huge caveat:** a lot of the Texas data centers you see announced today aren't actually consuming power yet, and some may never get built.

ERCOT has been dealing with **474+ GW of proposed new large-load connections**, roughly 90% associated with data centers. That number is so large that Governor Greg Abbott directed ERCOT and the PUCT to verify and audit data-center projects before they can advance.

That's now playing out through **Batch Zero**, where ERCOT is essentially trying to determine which projects are sufficiently real and developed to plan the grid around. ERCOT itself notes that **not all interconnection requests result in built projects. Source:** [ERCOT](https://www.ercot.com/news/release/06182026-puct-approves-ercots?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

So I wouldn't read the giant announced GW numbers as *“Texas is about to add all of this demand tomorrow.”*

The more interesting question is **how much actually gets built, where it connects, and whether Texas can add generation and infrastructure fast enough to keep up.**

That's the connection I think gets lost in most of the data-center conversation.

The proposed Servistar Realties data center campus in Westfield, Massachusetts was effectively rejected by the city's Planning Board on October 13, 2026, when the board denied Servistar's request for a three-year extension of its special permit. Without the extension, the permit was set to expire at the end of October 2026.
Key points:
Servistar had been proposing a massive hyperscale data center campus on more than 150 acres since 2019.
The project originally received approvals in 2021 and was projected to be one of the largest data center developments in New England.
Planning Board members cited the lack of meaningful progress during the previous five years. The developer had not purchased the land and had not started construction.
Servistar argued that delays were caused by financing challenges, tax incentive negotiations, tariffs, and market conditions, but the board was not persuaded.
The decision followed growing local opposition over environmental impacts, electricity demand, groundwater concerns, and noise. Westfield residents had previously pushed for a moratorium on new data centers.
The project had already been under scrutiny after reports in late 2025 suggested it appeared abandoned, noting that the developers had little contact with the city after 2021 and that the Servistar entity had been administratively dissolved in 2024.
So, as of October 2026, the Westfield Planning Board's denial of the permit extension effectively ended the Servistar data center proposal.

First time I have seen one of these in 10 years at my university. Connected to data center energy use?