Data centers in Florida strain the state grid during summer heatwaves, raising concerns about regional power availability and permitting delays as buildout accelerates.
Florida Power and Light's CEO Scott Bores told investors during the company's Q2 earnings call that a new Florida law designed to protect ratepayers from data center costs would instead provide "certainty" to attract multibillion-dollar investments to the state. "Having that legislation come in place in May allows for a lot of certainty for these customers that are going to make multibillion-dollar investments in the state of Florida," he said. "So I think that gives us a good foundation to build upon."
But this optimistic outlook conflicts with warnings from grid reliability experts. Kerry Duggan, founder and CEO of ESP.earth and a former policy advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, points to a nationwide alert about data centers' strain on electrical infrastructure. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) issued a level-three alert this spring—its highest designation—with responses due by August 3 from organizations managing the nation's grid. The alert cited artificial intelligence training, cryptocurrency mining, and traditional data center uses as computational loads for which "entities generally did not have sufficient processes, procedures, or methods to address risks."
Duggan supports continued data center construction but advocates for a fundamental redesign: self-contained facilities independent of the grid. "I think of old data centers as the Model T," he said. "I drive a Mach-E, all electric vehicle. I want to put the Mach-E style data centers online."
Florida's Senate Bill 484, which took effect July 1, 2026, addresses some of these concerns by requiring the Public Service Commission to establish requirements ensuring data centers "pay for their own cost of service" and creating a financial protection framework. Local governments retain planning and zoning authority over large-scale facilities. However, projections suggest the challenge is substantial: data centers are expected to consume up to 12 percent of nationwide electricity by 2030, compared to 4 percent today. A 650-megawatt facility alone would consume as much energy as 500,000 homes—equivalent to Orange County's entire population.
"The growth of data centers in an area can lead to considerable strain on local electric grids," the Senate analysis notes, "especially with the considerable mismatch between the speed with which data centers can be constructed and the ability to get approval for and build new generation capacity."
The strain intensifies during extreme heat. University of California Riverside Professor Shaolei Ren told the Associated Press that a heat wave represents "almost the worst situation for data center operations" because cooling—whether through electricity-intensive refrigeration or water-intensive evaporative systems—becomes critical precisely when grid stress peaks. During a recent heatwave in other states, the Department of Energy authorized power companies to keep data centers online using diesel generators, citing "an imminent electric reliability emergency."
Duggan urged local officials to seize the opportunity: "If your local elected official, I know that there's moratoriums going up everywhere. If they can use the time, whatever they've set for the moratorium to really get together with the community and talk about what could we ask for?"