How Waterford CT Defeated a Hyperscale Data Center

Waterford’s three-year campaign against a proposed hyperscale data center is over. The Host Fee Agreement between NE Edge-Waterford, LLC and the Town of Waterford expired after the company defaulted on its terms, killing a project that had drawn regulatory scrutiny from multiple state agencies and mobilized residents across two communities.

The fight didn’t start in a courtroom. It started in a library basement.

In August 2023, residents packed a meeting at the Waterford Public Library to work through what a hyperscale facility would actually cost them, not just in tax revenue, but in electricity rates, traffic, and infrastructure strain. That conversation didn’t dissolve when people went home. It hardened into an organized group called Concerned Citizens of Waterford and East Lyme, known as CCWEL, which spent the better part of three years building a documented, source-cited public record against the project.

“We’re thrilled,” said the CCWEL organizer who first called that 2023 library meeting. “The NE Edge-Waterford Data Center project has been resolved but remains acknowledged for future reference.”

The group’s approach wasn’t just attending hearings and voicing displeasure. CCWEL members filed written comments with the Connecticut Siting Council during its review of Dominion’s application to modify its boundaries. They sent letters to the Office of the Attorney General raising concerns about power monopolization. They contacted the Office of Consumer Counsel to flag what they saw as a serious rate risk: routing 15% of Millstone Nuclear Power Station’s output to a single commercial data center would push electricity costs higher for ordinary ratepayers across New England.

That argument matters.

Connecticut ratepayers already pay some of the highest residential electricity rates in the country. Any regulatory decision that funnels a substantial share of Millstone’s generation, the largest power source in New England, into a private industrial facility would squeeze supply and drive prices up for everyone else on the grid. CCWEL didn’t just assert this. They documented it.

The most damaging research came from digging through publicly available data maintained by ISO-New England, the regional grid operator. CCWEL members found records showing that both Millstone reactors, Units 2 and 3, were simultaneously offline for a five-week stretch. NE Edge had argued it wouldn’t need backup generators because its facility would connect directly to nuclear power, making the backup question moot. The ISO records demolished that claim. If both units can go dark at the same time, and they can, then a direct nuclear connection doesn’t guarantee the uninterrupted power that a hyperscale data center demands.

That’s the kind of technical finding that can’t be talked around in a regulatory proceeding.

Each agency that CCWEL engaged, the Siting Council, the Consumer Counsel’s office, the Attorney General’s office, and ISO-New England, performed its oversight function. The process worked the way it’s supposed to work when residents show up with evidence instead of just emotion. The Connecticut Siting Council accepted resident comments and factored them into its process. The Host Fee Agreement lapsed without renewal. NE Edge defaulted, and the project collapsed under the weight of its own unresolved contradictions.

The CT Mirror reported CCWEL’s account of what brought the project down, and it’s worth reading for anyone who thinks local organizing can’t stand up to a well-financed development push. The Waterford case offers a concrete rebuttal. It wasn’t a lawsuit or a legislative intervention that stopped NE Edge. It was three years of methodical engagement, agency by agency, data point by data point, starting from a single meeting in 2023.

Connecticut’s data center appetite isn’t going away. Developers will keep eyeing grid-connected sites near major transmission infrastructure, and Millstone’s location in southeastern Connecticut makes the region an obvious target. What Waterford showed is that a community willing to do the technical homework, file comments, read ISO databases, and sustain that effort across multiple regulatory proceedings can shape outcomes even against better-funded opponents. The Host Fee Agreement with the Town expired in 2026. The project is dead.