From the front window of her home in Middleton Township, Ohio, Breanne Kidd used to watch the sun come up over open farmland while having her morning coffee before children arrived at her home daycare. That view has since been overtaken by cranes, steel, and construction dust as crews erect Meta’s massive 800-acre Bowling Green data center. What caught her off guard, though, was something no one had mentioned: a large natural gas power plant going up right across the street to supply the project.
“We’re literally across the street,” said Kidd, gesturing toward the Apollo Generating Station site in Wood County, roughly 25 miles south of Toledo. “I’m living next to a threat.”
The Apollo plant is one of dozens of off-grid power facilities being approved rapidly, and often quietly, across the country to meet the tech industry’s surging energy appetite. A Reuters review of regulatory filings and interviews with residents, officials, researchers, and executives found that these plants, built exclusively to power individual data centers, are being greenlit in weeks or months rather than the years typically required for conventional energy projects. Developers contend that facilities serving private customers are exempt from many standard rules, leaving communities with little say about projects that affect their air and climate.
Transparency has been further eroded by the use of non-disclosure agreements with local governments, shell companies, and redacted public documents, the reporting found.
According to Harvard postdoctoral researcher Michael Cork, the AI industry’s off-grid natural gas generation is becoming one of the largest underexamined air-quality risks in the country.
The Apollo facility, which has enough capacity to power around 100,000 homes, was approved by the Ohio Power Siting Board on February 3, fewer than three months after plans were filed. The state’s draft air permit wasn’t made publicly available until March, after construction had already begun. Though the plant serves only Meta, paperwork identified the client as a subsidiary called Liames LLC.
Research firm Cleanview’s data provided to Reuters shows at least 57 off-grid power plants are proposed or under construction in the US to serve individual data centers, with a combined capacity of 73,000 megawatts. Reuters identified more than a dozen such projects approved in under a year with little or no community notice. Two are already running, including a facility outside Memphis tied to SpaceX’s xAI operation and another in Ashburn, Virginia serving Vantage Data Centers.
Most of these plants burn natural gas, which releases nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter tied to respiratory illness, along with greenhouse gases.
Supporters argue these projects are critical to AI development and keep costs off consumer electricity bills. The Trump administration, framing China as a competitor, has pushed to speed up permitting for AI infrastructure. The EPA and several states, including Ohio, West Virginia, Texas, and Utah, have proposed or enacted policies to accelerate approvals.
Too Fast to Stop
Ohio passed a law last year allowing certain plants to be approved in as little as 45 days with no public hearings, which helps explain Apollo’s swift greenlighting. State officials view data center development as an economic boon, particularly in northwest Ohio, where land availability, water access, and proximity to natural gas pipelines have attracted major tech companies. The Regional Growth Partnership’s Gary Thompson said officials are hoping to land ten hyperscale data centers in the area. “These companies need certainty, and they need power,” he said.
Some residents are pushing back. “One gas plant and one data center may be manageable,” said Perrysburg resident Lauren Berlekamp, “but four or more becomes a regional public health event.”
The Apollo project is being built by Will Power LLC, a subsidiary of pipeline company Williams Companies, which is developing four similar projects in Ohio. A company spokesperson said the facilities comply with state regulations and noted that the Ohio EPA held a public hearing on Apollo in April. Meta said its partners are required to meet air-quality rules.
Secrecy and Scrutiny
Ohio lawmakers have also recently enacted provisions shielding major projects like data centers from public records laws, with officials potentially facing criminal charges for releasing such information. The provision was inserted into an unrelated college athletics bill by Republican state Senator Brian Chavez, whose top two donors in 2025 were a construction union supportive of data center development and utility NiSource, each contributing $10,000.
Supporters say such measures protect sensitive business information. Critics see it differently. “It undermines our fundamental concepts of democracy: transparency and accountability,” said Andrew Kear, a political scientist at Bowling Green State University.
Retired police officer Christine Coultrip, of Perrysburg Township, said neighbors have been approached to sell property for a possible data center but that local officials won’t share details. “I’m very disturbed that legislators can be charged if they talk about data center economics with their constituents,” she said.
Pushback has emerged in other states as well. Microsoft announced in March it would stop using non-disclosure agreements nationwide following criticism tied to projects in Wisconsin. Meta said confidentiality agreements are standard in site selection and do not stop partners from engaging with the public.
Musk’s xAI has also faced scrutiny in Tennessee and Mississippi for operating gas turbines without permits to power its Colossus data centers, claiming the units are exempt as temporary and off-grid. In West Virginia, legislation passed last year exempted certain data center microgrids from local zoning laws. A large gas plant proposed in Tucker County received a state air permit that year, with key technical details redacted from public documents.
Community Concerns
Near Columbus, Ohio, township trustee Brian Rothenberg said his community recently learned of plans for a gas fuel-cell power plant, potentially the largest of its kind in the US, to serve an Amazon Web Services data center. Local officials have been seeking safety details for a nearby elementary school, but utility AEP and state regulators have not provided them.
“My biggest concern is health and security,” Rothenberg said. “I don’t want my constituents to be lab rats if something goes wrong.” AEP said it has shared emergency information directly with local fire departments and first responders. Ohio’s EPA said it cannot comment on the project while a legal challenge to its permit is pending.
Back in Middleton Township, Breanne Kidd says the uncertainty weighs on her. “For my family and my daycare families, their safety is my number one priority, and I feel like right now I can’t guarantee that. It’s all out of our hands.”
