Lauren Keeler

Where's the benefit for us?

So what communities are asking with these data centers is, hey, listen, this isn't because of my phone and my use.

This is because of AI use by some company.

Where's the benefit for me when I have to live next door to this huge, hot, loud facility?

Yeah, and the greatest impact is going to be on the electricity system.

Here in Arizona, the demand queue for new power to be added to our energy system over the next 10 years is as large as as much power as they have added to the energy system in the last 50.

So none of that can be met without new generation.

So I think one of the risks associated with data centers is this rapid expansion of electricity infrastructure, new power plants, new transmission, and the cost of that getting passed on to your average utility customer.

And so it's really important that utilities make provisions and work with data centers so that

It's those data centers that are paying for the cost of that infrastructure expansion.

That's not the default.

I do think that.

I also think not every community is right for a data center.

You know, if you have really scarce water resources, if it's really hard to develop renewable energy that can power these data centers, if you're in a place that has...

environmental hazards.

Maybe data centers aren't right.

But I do think that for certain communities, you can develop data centers in a way that provides direct benefit to the people that are adjacent to those facilities.