Review standards for large-load compute facilities where local grid capacity, water use, or service reliability require enforceable permit conditions.
Clean, professional, and self-contained. Written as a planning-policy appendix — language your city attorney can review, your planning director can act on, and your council can vote on. No technical background required. No SYNC ecosystem knowledge assumed. Download the PDF below and forward it directly.
Greenfield large-load compute facilities — unless a separate site-specific determination is made by the permitting authority. This includes data centers, AI inference farms, hyperscale compute nodes, and co-location facilities seeking interconnection or permit approval within the jurisdiction.
This attachment provides review standards for large-load compute facilities where local grid capacity, water use, or service reliability require enforceable permit conditions as a condition of interconnection approval or continued operation.
A single compute facility seeking to draw up to 50 MW, within a city-defined 50 MW hard aggregate municipal or zonal compute ceiling. All numerical thresholds in this attachment scale with the reference case but may be adjusted by the permitting authority.
Facility shall not draw electrical load exceeding 50 MW at any time. Compliance enforced via Level-1 SCADA hardware interlock — a PLC-based physical lockout that cannot be bypassed through software configuration changes or operational workarounds.
Prevents grid destabilization from demand spikes. Hardware enforcement eliminates reliance on operational compliance alone.
The municipality or zone shall not permit aggregate connected large-load compute load to exceed 300 MW across all facilities. Each facility's permit shall identify the current aggregate utilization and confirm headroom remains within the zonal ceiling at time of approval.
Prevents cluster formation that overwhelms regional transmission infrastructure — the primary mechanism of grid-related municipal fiscal emergency.
A land-use zoning fee shall be assessed at interconnection approval, scaled to permitted capacity in MW. The fee is assessed as a condition of the land-use permit — not as a utility rate — structuring it within the municipality's land-use authority and outside FERC-style retail/wholesale preemption risk.
Creates a fiscal barrier against uncontrolled compute density while funding municipal grid hardening. Impact fee structure is the primary legal mechanism for preemption resistance.
Each permitted facility shall be assigned a lifetime total energy throughput limit (MWh) upon permit issuance. Facility approaching or exceeding its exhaustion budget triggers a mandatory compliance review. Facilities may not install on-site generation to bypass the exhaustion budget without separate authorization.
Prevents operational "escape hatch" through fossil fuel backup generation. Ensures total lifecycle energy impact remains within modeled projections used at permit approval.
Upon any hardware upgrade, refresh, or expansion, the facility's permitted capacity shall be reviewed and may not increase beyond the original permitted level. Efficiency gains realized through hardware upgrades shall not be converted into raw load growth. Each hardware refresh must result in equal or lower aggregate permitted capacity.
Closes the "efficiency rebound" loophole — the primary mechanism by which data centers historically circumvent demand management commitments.
Interconnection headroom must be confirmed against aggregate zonal ceiling before permit issuance. Transmission study required for facilities ≥ 20 MW.
Zero Liquid Discharge mandate applies to all cooling systems. Facility shall provide closed-loop water recovery plan and annual discharge reports as a permit condition.
Curtailment plan required for grid emergency events. Facility must demonstrate ability to shed load within 15 minutes of utility request without disrupting municipal critical infrastructure.
Annual compliance audit required. Failure to maintain SCADA interlock certification, ZLD compliance, or exhaustion budget reporting triggers permit review and potential de-authorization.
Attach as Exhibit A to any large-load compute facility conditional use permit. The five permit conditions in §1–§5 are written to function as enforceable permit conditions without requiring SYNC ecosystem adoption. They are jurisdiction-neutral and compatible with existing land-use code frameworks.
Review §3 (Impact Fee) for local jurisdiction fit — impact fee structuring for preemption resistance is fact-specific to each state's utility regulation environment. The 50 MW / 300 MW thresholds in §1–§2 are technical recommendations, not legal mandates, and may be adjusted per local conditions with engineering input.
Contact get-involved.html to begin the SYNC compliance pathway. SYNC v3.0 provides the SCADA interlock specifications, ZLD engineering plans, and exhaustion budget accounting tools referenced in these permit conditions — at zero cost to the municipality.