Governor Mikie Sherrill announced Thursday that she is signing legislation requiring data centers in New Jersey to report their energy and water use to the state Board of Public Utilities every six months.
“Here in New Jersey, we’re not going to let these developers operate in the shadows,” Sherrill wrote in a post on X.
The move comes as data centers face growing scrutiny across the state over their enormous demand for electricity and water. Earlier this summer, Sherrill also signed legislation intended to ensure that large data centers pay their share of energy-related infrastructure costs rather than shifting those costs onto families and small businesses.
At the same time, residents across New Jersey have been voicing frustration over sharply higher electricity bills. In local Facebook groups, some homeowners say their monthly bills have nearly doubled and are asking why costs have risen so dramatically.
Those complaints do not prove that data centers are directly responsible for individual household bill increases. Electricity prices are influenced by several factors, including generation costs, transmission constraints, utility charges and overall demand.
But the timing has intensified public concern. New Jersey is seeing rapid growth in proposed AI and data center projects, while the state itself has acknowledged the need to closely track the enormous electricity demands associated with these facilities.
Sherrill’s new reporting requirement could provide residents and regulators with a clearer picture of exactly how much electricity and water individual data centers are consuming — information that until now has often been difficult for the public to obtain.
Source: Governor Mikie Sherrill / X; Office of the Governor of New Jersey.
By NJ RADAR Team