Are These Really the Same Thing? Comparing the Data Centers Curtis Linton Referenced

During his public comments on Ordinance 25-101, Curtis Linton argued that he had previously helped build a data center on Route 7 and questioned whether residents' concerns about the proposed projects were being overstated.

That comparison caught my attention.

As an engineer, when someone compares two things, my first question is always: Are they actually comparable?

The Route 7 facility Linton referenced is approximately 11 megawatts. The projects being proposed for New Castle County are around 1.2 gigawatts—more than 100 times larger.

They're both called data centers, but they are vastly different sizes. Just as you wouldn't compare a neighborhood grocery store to the Christiana Mall simply because they both sell food, you can't assume facilities of vastly different scales will have the same impacts on nearby communities, electric infrastructure, water use, noise, or land use.

That's why Ordinance 25-101 created regulations specifically for these new hyperscale data centers. Good public policy depends on making the right comparisons, and understanding the scale of what we're being asked to approve.