Essex County Council is moving ahead with a study looking at how the county and its seven municipalities should handle potential AI data centre developments. On Wednesday evening, council unanimously approved up to $150,000 for the study, which will examine potential impacts on electricity, water, noise, the environment and municipal infrastructure. The concern is that these data centres are already permitted in some industrial and commercial zones, meaning a major proposal could come forward before the County has an official policy in place. The study will look at a regional approach, as well as an approach for each individual municipality, and will examine zoning, environmental and community impacts, costs, and what the long-term local economic benefits would be, if any. Both the federal and provincial governments are encouraging data centre development. Ontario recently released a draft Data Centre Playbook dealing primarily with electricity-grid connections. Kingsville deputy mayor Kimberly DeYong says this is great information to have in their back pocket before something drastic happens. “I think that we’re kind of in a bit of a fortunate situation that we can get a little bit ahead of it. The province hasn’t decided exactly what they’re going to do yet. We can actually get our comments in, we can start our study. And then when we’re ready to assert something, we’ll actually know what it is we need to assert. And right now we don’t.” Tecumseh mayor Gary McNamara says this is a critical stage to have a baseline for all local municipalities. “You certainly don’t want to be pitting one against the other when they’re trying to find areas - in their minds - where they should be placed and so forth, so to have some sort of a standard bylaw or rules of engagement, knowing exactly the power requirements, water, everything that goes into the requirements of data centres, at least there’s a standard within our region.” Amherstburg deputy mayor Chris Gibb says this is a perfect time to be a regional force and found out the information together. “I think this is an excellent opportunity to be proactive and to say to our residents, ‘you know what, we hear you’. We need to find out answers as well. So I think this is money well spent. It makes no sense to have seven municipalities spend $150,000 when we can do this for everyone.” According to the report, Hydro One says it is not currently aware of any major data centres planned for Essex County or Windsor. The region’s biggest source of electricity demand right now is greenhouses. The County plans to issue a request for proposals by the end of September, with a draft study targeted for the first quarter of 2027. Council is also asking the province to consider its concerns and sending the report to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, seeking support for a federal-provincial-municipal strategy on where large data centres should be located.
