Six Maryland organizations across five counties formed the Maryland Data Centers Analysis Group (MDCAG) earlier this month, to shed light on the state’s growing data center industry.

Data centers are a quickly growing industry in Maryland with more than 40 built across the state. These facilities can consume 1,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy per square meter, or 10 times as much as the average household.

Data centers produce a great deal of heat and much of their power consumption goes towards cooling the machines. Water based cooling is commonly used, where a medium sized data center can consume 300,000 gallons of water per day. In contrast, larger centers can consume upwards of 5,000,000 gallons. That’s the water use of 50,000 people.

While data centers vary in size, Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties have what are known as hyperscale data center projects. A single data center can be one building standing on its own, but hyperscale projects can comprise entire campuses of data centers spanning thousands of acres. A single company can own all of the centers, or could lease the land for other companies to build on.

How It Began

Envision Frederick County, the Sugarloaf Alliance, the Fellowship of Scientists and Engineers, the Montgomery Countryside Alliance, Sustainable Hyattsville and the Tri-County Coalition make up the six founding organizations.

Faith Klareich, one of the founding members of the MDCAG, has a background in education and technology deployment and served on the Frederick County data center work group.

Using her expertise, Klareich was able to identify a consistent problem. Policy makers never seemed to receive the information they needed, in time to inform their decisions. “By the time the policy is formed, the circumstance in the situation has usually changed,” Klareich explained. “So there’s always this lag time between issue and solution.”

Good policy comes when you have a 360 degree perspective, Klareich said, pointing out that policies that work for one jurisdiction may become guides for other communities. Where jurisdictions can begin to fall short is when they have to work in a vacuum.

That vacuum revealed itself to Klareich when she attended several conferences on AI, data centers and government policy this past spring. ‘There was discussion at the international level, the federal level and even the state level,” Klareich said. “But when I would ask questions about the local level, these experts really couldn’t address it.”

She wasn’t the only one to recognize the gaps in the discussion around data centers and said other organizations were quick to agree with her. Once the need was identified, Klareich said other organizations didn’t hesitate to join.

What’s Being Done

The information needed is out there, Klareich clarified, but much of it is largely decentralized. She and the other founding members want to put a spotlight on that data.

The MDCAG plans to create a database gathering sources from all across the data center discussion. Klareich explained they will partner with organizations that already collect this data, providing residents and policy makers a centralized place to learn. “We are not an advocacy group,” Klareich said. “Our sole goal is to elevate information from trustworthy sources across a spectrum of information.”

Just collecting the information is not enough, as Klareich says they plan to work with research institutes and universities to verify the data they uncover. “We’re in the process of looking at criteria that we think would lead us in that direction,” Klareich explained.

Klareich says they will rely on their member organizations to help disseminate the data to residents and local leaders. To bridge the gap between the business jargon and the average resident, MDCAG also plans to hold live interviews with industry specialists.

Looking Ahead

Quantum Frederick (QF), a hyperscale data center campus in Frederick County, spans 2,100 acres of land. A recent bill passed by the county council could increase the total land available to data centers to 4,200 acres, or a maximum of 1% of the County’s land mass.

The company that originally founded the project, Quantum Loophole (QL), stated the campus could use 2.4 gigawatts of power. That’s enough electricity to power 2.4 million homes. This comes as Maryland already imports 40% of its energy from out of state.

With hyperscale data centers like QF, Klareich says Maryland is reaching a nexus point. “If we don’t reach for the most efficient ways, it leads to a transmission crisis,” Klareich asserted. “We’re looking at the MPRP, we’re looking at the potential for other transmission lines.”

The Maryland Piedmont Reliability project is a controversial high voltage power line that could cut a 150-foot wide, 70-mile track across Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick Counties.

The developer says the MPRP is needed to strengthen Maryland’s power grid, but opponents argue it's little more than an extension cord for Northern Virginia data centers.

More than 300 landowners have been taken to court by the developer so they can perform land surveys on private properties along the route of the MPRP to complete the project's application.

Klareich says projects at the scale of QF could require more high voltage power lines in the future.