Stream Data Centers pulls out of Marion County over utility concerns
MARION, S.C. — Stream Data Centers announced it’s no longer considering Marion County for a data center because it doesn’t believe it can get the utilities it needs in the time required.
MPD Electric Cooperative, in a statement, said it was unable to secure the electricity required for the data center, which also went by the name Project Liberty.
“We were notified by our power supplier, Central Electric Power Cooperative, that they were unable to secure the electricity needed for this project in a timely and cost-effective way, despite requesting that this site be placed in the load forecast back in 2023,” said Kullen Boling, vice president of power supply and contracts at MPD Co-op.
“While we are disappointed that Stream's potential customer had to make a business decision to go elsewhere, we are confident that with the support of our members and the legislators, this site will soon have the right tenant in place,” Boling said in a prepared statement.
The South Carolina Department of Public Safety has released the 30-day data of hands-free driving law citations by county.
Stream said that funds committed to the county will still be distributed to local organizations to support after-school programs, library resources and other efforts that benefit local residents and institutions.
"Despite efforts to advance this development, Project Liberty was unable to secure utility power within the required project timeline, making development at this location infeasible," a spokesperson for the company said in a statement.
"Stream remains committed to and grateful for its established collaboration with Marion County, and we are glad to confirm that the funds originally pledged to the community will still be distributed to local organizations supporting after-school programs, library resources, and other initiatives that benefit local families and institutions.”
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The county does not have a comment at this time, according to Zach McKay, executive director of the Economic Development Commission in Marion County.
An organization of residents against the development, United People Project, said they hope the county or Stream releases which organizations the funds will go to.
Around one hundred Marion County residents attended the County Council meeting Tuesday morning to express opposition to the proposed data cent…
United People Project organizer Jessica Thomas said she would like either the company or county to release that information.
"We want transparency around that as well," Thomas said.
United People Project organizer Idreese Foxworth said, "The thing that that was the biggest overarching issue was transparency, as well as NDAs, and just being upfront with people, and having elected officials just tell their constituents what's going on, and not lying or misleading them, or having false information rule their judgments over actual facts.”
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Thomas said, "We really hope for is the county works together with the people with organizations like, like ours, the United People Project, to say, OK, how can we engage the community more? How do we get more feedback?".
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