(Estherville)--The Emmet County Board of Supervisors Tuesday heard a presentation on data centers from Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative President and CEO Ryan Craig. Craig says several companies have expressed an interest in developing data center projects in Iowa Lakes eight county service territory. Craig says the proposals are for projects 25 megawatts or less in size.
Craig says the trend in the industry is toward building smaller size data centers.
He says extensive studies would be required for any proposed data center.
Craig also offered advice for Emmet County in dealing with data centers.
In August, the Emmet County Board of Supervisors approved a one year moratorium on data center projects.
In other business, the board approved the canvass for the November general election. A total of 3,677 ballots were cast for a voter turnout of slightly more than 59-percent. That compares to about 50.9 percent in the last midterm election in 2022. Election Deputy Roxanne Budach says voter turnout was high due in part to the North Union School Bond Issue. A total 2,514 people voted at the polls on election day and 1,163 absentee ballots were accepted for counting. Nine provisional ballots were cast and four were rejected.
