Tuesday, 22 September 2026

Georgia's Public Service Commission (PSC) traveled to Savannah to hear directly from coastal residents, according to Grist.

Many speakers focused on an OpenAI data center planned for Effingham County, just outside Savannah, and pressed for greater transparency around the project's contract with Georgia Power, Grist reported. Commenters also used the session to criticize the commission over power bills.

PSC chair Jason Shaw said Georgia Power needs to disclose more information about its data center contracts, according to Grist.

Former US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) researchers, now with the nonprofit Environmental Protection Network, warned in a new report that actions taken by Donald Trump's EPA since January 2025 could raise the health risks tied to the data center boom, according to Grist.

The group counted at least 30 separate moves weakening pollution safeguards, permitting processes, and inspection norms over that period, Grist reported.

Among them, the EPA has proposed a rule change that would let developers start building data centers and their associated power plants before securing air pollution permits, per Grist.

The scale of the build-out frames the concern. Grist reported there are about 3,000 data centers in the United States, with more than 1,500 additional centers in planning.

The former researchers cited a study estimating that pollution linked to the AI boom may cause 1,300 additional deaths per year, according to Grist.

AWS launched Agentic Grid Planning on AWS on September 17, 2026, a program giving utilities access to specialized AI agents intended to accelerate interconnection studies, according to Event Registry.

Duke Energy, the first collaborating utility on the program, has cut data preparation work from two weeks of manual effort to a matter of hours, Event Registry reported.

The agents coordinate study workflows across utilities' existing tools, handling data preparation, analysis execution and task sequencing. Engineers direct the studies, review versioned audit trails and retain responsibility for all final engineering decisions.

Google will invest at least EUR 13 billion, about USD 15.1 billion, in artificial intelligence infrastructure in Finland over the next two years, its largest European commitment to date, according to Yahoo Finance.

The spending is anchored by a 22-year power agreement with Finnish utility Fortum, Yahoo Finance reported. Under the contract, Google will purchase up to 50% of the electricity generated by the Loviisa nuclear plant to supply its data-center operations.

The Fortum contract is Google's first nuclear energy deal outside the United States, per Yahoo Finance. The 22-year term gives the company long-term visibility on a critical input for AI workloads.

The European Commission has proposed a common EU rating scheme for data centres, aimed at increasing transparency on their energy use and supporting their sustainable integration into Europe's energy system.

According to the Commission, the scheme will apply to individual data centres with a capacity above 500 kW. The first sustainability labels for individual facilities are expected to be displayed in 2027.

As reported by Anadolu Agency, the ratings would assess whether facilities reuse the heat produced by their equipment, add clean energy supplies and adjust their electricity use to ease pressure on power grids.

Agence Europe reported that the label is intended to increase transparency regarding data centres' energy and water consumption.