56% of Americans Oppose Local Data Centers Over Power Costs

A majority of Americans now oppose building data centers in their communities, driven primarily by fears that the massive facilities powering artificial intelligence will drive up household electricity bills. The resistance cuts across partisan lines and climate beliefs, signaling a growing political obstacle for technology companies racing to expand computing infrastructure nationwide.

Fifty-six percent of U.S. adults said they would oppose a new data center in their local area, while only 15 percent expressed support, according to an April 2026 nationally representative survey of 1,068 adults conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication. Among registered voters, roughly three-quarters of liberal Democrats and half of conservative Republicans shared that opposition.

The findings reflect a rare alignment between groups that typically disagree on environmental policy. Seventy-one percent of respondents categorized as highly alarmed about climate change opposed local development. Yet strong opposition also emerged from those who reject the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming, indicating that neighborhood impacts — rather than abstract environmental debates — are driving public sentiment.

Electricity costs anchor the concern. Fifty-nine percent of respondents expect their power bills to rise if a data center opens nearby. Only 5 percent anticipate lower rates. This anxiety spans every major political demographic and nearly all segments of the public, regardless of how closely they follow climate issues.

Those expectations are rooted in the physical realities of AI infrastructure. Training large language models and running inference workloads require specialized graphics processing units that draw significantly more power than traditional cloud computing servers. A single hyperscale facility can consume hundreds of megawatts, equivalent to the demand of a mid-sized city. When regional grids lack surplus capacity, utilities must either purchase expensive wholesale power or accelerate construction of new generation assets, costs that historically flow into residential rate bases through complex tariff formulas.

Power purchase agreements between tech giants and utility companies rarely guarantee complete insulation for residential customers. Even when developers contract directly for electricity, the strain on transmission infrastructure and the need for grid upgrades often trigger broader rate adjustments approved by state public utility commissions.

Some regulators are already attempting to sever that financial link. Several state utility commissions have opened proceedings to evaluate whether data center operators should be placed on separate commercial rate schedules or required to fund dedicated infrastructure upgrades without passing costs to other ratepayers.

Local governments have moved faster. In early September, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order barring state agencies from issuing permits for data center projects that lack prior municipal approval. Vermont municipalities have enacted outright bans after Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a statewide regulatory framework earlier this year. Similar moratoriums and zoning restrictions have surfaced in parts of Virginia, Ohio, and Georgia, states that previously competed aggressively to attract hyperscale investment.

Despite the broad resistance to new construction, the public remains open to specific mitigation mandates. Survey respondents strongly backed proposals requiring developers to offset their energy consumption locally. One model, championed by the electrification advocacy group Rewiring America, would mandate that data center operators install rooftop solar arrays and fund weatherization and insulation upgrades for neighboring homes that opt in. The efficiency gains and distributed generation would theoretically neutralize the facility’s net impact on the local grid.

Support for such offset requirements crossed political boundaries, drawing backing from most demographic segments. The only group where support fell below 50 percent was the segment of the population that dismisses climate science entirely, though even within that cohort, majorities still oppose nearby data centers and expect higher utility bills.

The tension between national AI ambitions and local infrastructure limits is reshaping site selection strategies. Developers increasingly target areas with stranded power assets, such as retired coal plants with existing high-voltage transmission interconnections, or regions with abundant renewable generation capacity. Some firms have begun exploring behind-the-meter nuclear arrangements, including small modular reactors, to bypass strained public grids altogether.

Utility commissions in Virginia, Texas, and Oregon currently have active dockets examining data center load growth and its impact on long-term resource planning.