Data-center law in Vermont

10 V.S.A. chapter 151

Effective 1970-04-04 · Applies to both

Vermont's land use and development law requires a Land Use Review Board permit for a "development," which for commercial or industrial construction means more than 10 acres of land in a municipality with permanent zoning and subdivision bylaws, or more than one acre in a municipality without them, among other thresholds.

A data center's construction generally falls within this commercial or industrial development trigger and proceeds to review under the Act's criteria for environmental, infrastructure, and community impacts before a permit issues. Act 250 was added to the statutes by 1969 Act No. 250 (Adj. Sess.), effective April 4, 1970, per that section's own history note, and has been amended many times since.

Source: Full text of law

30 V.S.A. § 248

Effective 1969-04-18 · Applies to both

No company or person may begin site preparation for or construction of an electric generation facility, energy storage facility, or electric transmission facility in Vermont, or exercise eminent domain in connection with one, unless the Public Utility Commission first finds that doing so will promote the general good of the State and issues a certificate of public good.

On-site generation or storage built solely for the owner's own consumption is exempted from this requirement, so a data center's backup generation for its own use falls outside section 248, while grid-connected generation, storage, or transmission built to serve it does not.

The section was added by 1969 Act No. 69, effective April 18, 1969, per its own history note, and has been amended repeatedly since to reach new facility types, including energy storage and ground-mounted solar generation facilities.

Source: Full text of law

30 V.S.A. § 218c

Applies to both

Each regulated electric or gas utility must prepare and periodically submit to the Public Utility Commission a least-cost integrated plan for meeting its customers' energy service needs, covering supply, transmission, distribution capacity, and efficiency investments. A large new load such as a data center is a fact a serving utility's least-cost plan and rate filings must account for, though the section itself does not single out data centers or any other class of large customer.

The section was added by 1991 Act No. 99, section 2, which carries no effective-date clause of its own in the codified history note; under 1 V.S.A. § 212 a law enacted at a regular session with no specific effective-date clause takes effect July 1 next following passage, so the section commenced July 1, 1991.

Source: Full text of law

H.727, 2025-2026 Regular Session (30 V.S.A. chapter 5, subchapter 3, §§ 281-284, as passed)

Applies to private

H.727, the Vermont Sustainable Data Centers Act, would have added a new subchapter to Title 30 defining a "data center" as a facility that uses or is able to use 20 megawatts or more of power and provides data processing, hosting, or related services under NAICS code 518210, and would have directed the Public Utility Commission to establish a separate ratepayer class and tariff schedule for data centers and to require standardized provisions in any electric-service contract between a data center and its electric distribution company, allocating infrastructure costs to the data center rather than to other ratepayers.

The bill passed both the House and the Senate, but Governor Scott vetoed it, and the House sustained the veto by a vote of 83 to 52 on May 29, 2026, so it never became law and Vermont currently has no large-load-specific electricity tariff or contracting requirement for data centers.

Source: Full text of law

10 V.S.A. chapter 23

Applies to both

The Agency of Natural Resources permits the construction or modification of an air contaminant source and separately issues operating permits for existing sources.

A data center's backup diesel or gas generator fleet is an air contaminant source and requires a construction permit under section 556 and, where applicable, an operating permit under section 556a. Section 556 was added by 1967 Act No. 310 (Adjourned Session), section 6, which carries no effective-date clause of its own in the codified history note; under 1 V.S.A. § 212 a law enacted with no specific effective-date clause takes effect July 1 next following passage, so the section commenced July 1, 1968.

Source: Full text of law