HAMLET – Two contested-case petitions challenge North Carolina’s final air permits for 649 diesel generators tied to Amazon’s $10 billion Richmond County data center, adding an administrative legal test to a project expected to become Duke Energy’s largest customer.
The Richmond County Coalition for Justice and Black Empowerment, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, filed the petitions Sept. 25 in the N.C. Office of Administrative Hearings. SELC said one petition challenges the permit issued to Amazon Data Services and the other challenges the related permit issued to Duke Energy Progress. The filings ask an administrative law judge to vacate the permits.
Amazon’s permit covers 592 emergency generators, including 588 critical backup generators and four ancillary generators. Duke Energy’s separate permit covers 57 temporary bridge-power generators that would supply the campus until it connects to the grid, according to independent reporting by WRAL. WRAL reported the planned $10 billion campus would include 21 buildings of about 200,000 square feet each across nearly 800 acres and is expected to become Duke Energy’s largest customer when fully operational.
The coalition alleges the state should have treated all 649 generators as a single major stationary source under the federal Clean Air Act. The petitions argue that issuing two synthetic-minor permits avoided a combined Prevention of Significant Deterioration review and the associated analysis and pollution-control requirements. Those assertions are allegations in the contested cases and have not been decided by an administrative law judge.
The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality has said the activities are controlled by different companies, serve different purposes and operate on different timelines. In its Aug. 28 permit announcement, the agency said Amazon controls the backup engines, Duke controls the temporary bridge-power engines and the two sets are not expected to run simultaneously during normal operations.
DEQ said it analyzed each project using worst-case operating scenarios and found compliance with applicable standards could be achieved. The final permits cap emissions, require control technologies and add testing, monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting conditions. Duke must retire its bridge-power engines within one year after they begin operating, the agency said.
The cited records do not show that either permit has been stayed, that a hearing date has been set or that the project has been delayed. The immediate business consequence is added administrative-litigation risk around newly issued operating authorizations for a large project whose interim and backup power plans depend on the challenged permits.