November 24, 2025
LOWELL, Mass. — Massachusetts is on track to get its first hyperscale data center, a massive facility designed to support everything from social media apps and uploaded photos to websites used by major corporations and government agencies. But 25 Investigates found growing concerns about how these centers could impact residents — including their utility bills.
Living next to an existing data center “isn’t easy,” Lowell resident Jake Fortes told Boston 25’s Kerry Kavanaugh as he walked through the city’s Sacred Heart neighborhood. “It’s constant sleepless nights because of the noise.” He added, “It has been nonstop noise, construction. Pollution.”
Fortes says he was born and raised in his Iowa Street home. And industry was always in his backyard. For decades it was a pasta factory. It was briefly a recycling center. Markley moved in about a decade ago.
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Advocates warn that the costs could fall on ratepayers.
“We need to protect ratepayers and community members,” said Tristan Thomas of Alternatives for Community and Environment. Thomas claims hyperscale centers come with a pattern seen nationwide: “When these hyperscale data centers move in, utility bills go up.”
Data centers run 24/7 and require constant cooling, pulling heavily from local water supplies. Massachusetts regulations leave the door open to nondisclosure agreements which could keep the public in the dark about electricity and water use.
“The fact that the sales and use tax incentive doesn’t have any requirements around electricity or water or transparency about the impact, it sort of does end up just being a giveaway,” Thomas said.
See the full story + video at Boston 25 News.com