Data-center law in Kentucky

KRS 100.201

Effective 2002-07-15 · Applies to both

Once a planning unit adopts a comprehensive plan, the fiscal courts and city legislative bodies within it may enact zoning and other land use regulations to promote public health, safety, and welfare and to regulate the density of population and intensity of land use. A data-center rezoning, conditional-use approval, or site plan proceeds under this section and its companion content provision at KRS 100.203.

Source: Full text of law

KRS 278.020

Effective 2019-06-27 · Applies to both

A utility under Public Service Commission jurisdiction generally may not begin providing service or constructing a plant, equipment, or facility without a certificate of public convenience and necessity, though an ordinary extension of an existing system in the usual course of business is exempt.

Construction of an electric transmission line of 138 kilovolts or more and longer than 5,280 feet is not treated as an ordinary extension and requires a certificate even when it serves a single new large customer, which is the provision most likely to reach a data-center interconnection.

Source: Full text of law

KRS 198B.050

Effective 2017-06-29 · Applies to both

The Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction must adopt and promulgate a mandatory Uniform State Building Code covering structural, mechanical, electrical, and life-safety standards for construction statewide; the building permit for a data-center structure issues under this code, enforced locally or by the department where a local government has not been delegated enforcement.

Source: Full text of law

KRS 224.20-110

Effective 2025-06-27 · Applies to both

No person may emit or discharge air contaminants in contravention of the emission standards, ambient air standards, or administrative regulations adopted by Kentucky's Energy and Environment Cabinet; a data center's backup generator fleet permits under the cabinet's implementing regulations issued under this authority.

Source: Full text of law

KRS 139.499; KRS 154.20-220 to 154.20-229

Effective 2024-07-15 · Applies to private

KRS 139.499 exempts the sale, purchase, use, storage, installation, repair, and replacement of data center equipment from Kentucky sales and use tax for a company that has entered a memorandum of agreement with the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority for a qualified data center project under KRS 154.20-220 to 154.20-229. The exemption and the companion incentive program were enacted together by 2024 Ky. Acts ch. 166, effective July 15, 2024.

To qualify, an owner, operator, or colocation tenant must make a minimum capital investment, on or before the fifth anniversary of preliminary approval, of $450,000,000 in a county of 100,000 or more people, $100,000,000 in a county of 50,000 to 100,000 people, or $25,000,000 in a smaller county (a project organizer's threshold is $150,000,000 regardless of county), determined from the county's most recent five-year American Community Survey population estimate.

The program excludes a project that would replace an existing Kentucky data center, applies for another KRS Chapter 154 incentive, or benefits from Kentucky's separate cryptocurrency-mining electricity exemption. Limited exceptions to the replacement exclusion apply at KRS 154.20-228 for rehabilitating a shuttered facility or replacing one lost to eminent domain, fire, or other casualty.

A preliminarily approved company must report its qualified purchases and county location to the Department of Revenue annually beginning September 1, 2025, and that reporting is exempted from Kentucky's ordinary taxpayer-confidentiality protections.

Source: Full text of law