Grand Falls weighs data centres after noise complaints and expansion plans

Gus Rioux said he started raising concerns about data centres in Grand Falls before the wider provincial debate began. He lives about half a kilometre from one of two data centres in an industrial park in what used to be Saint-André. He said the noise was like a lawn mower that never stopped. Saint-André was amalgamated into Grand Falls in 2023, making the data centres the town’s problem.

Grand Falls council later called on the province to impose a moratorium on new data centres or expansions until it can adequately regulate the sector. Mayor Bertrand Beaulieu said the town is not against data centres, but wants guidelines before any more expansion. The province began asking for input on a data-centre policy framework in September. Premier Susan Holt has also promoted the proposed Lorneville data centre, while the province’s throne speech said proposals that do not meet new standards will not go ahead.

The centres in Grand Falls began as crypto-mining buildings built by GPU One from 2019 to 2020. Hive Digital bought the company in 2021 and added two more buildings. Taal Distributed Information Technologies later acquired Chief Fuels, which was setting up another mine in the same industrial park. Hive later bought 13 more hectares and said its Buzz HPC subsidiary would convert the site to an AI data centre.

Beaulieu said the town held meetings with the owners, who agreed to monitor noise weekly. He said water use has not been an issue, and Hive says its operation uses a closed-loop system. The town’s submission to the province says data centres can add to the tax base but also make a community too dependent on one major facility. It says construction brings jobs, but many workers come from outside the community and permanent jobs are few.