By Anna Staver
cleveland.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio — If something goes wrong at a power plant being built next to an Amazon data center outside Columbus, Norwich Township firefighters will be the first to respond.
But Fire Chief David Baird hasn’t seen or been allowed to see or help develop American Electric Power’s emergency response plans.
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“Normally, we work with the developer to create a safety plan,” Baird said. Fire departments typically weigh in on things like hydrant placement, access gates and emergency shut-off valves.
Baird and Township Trustee Brian Rothenberg said AEP has largely excluded local officials from that process, citing trade secrets for its gas diffusion fuel cell project.
“There’s a park behind it and a larger residential area,” Rothenberg said. “I want to be able to look those folks in the eye and say, ‘You’re safe.’ Not, ‘We think you’re safe because somebody we don’t know wrote a safety plan.’”
Their frustration stems from a bipartisan law passed last year to make it easier for large energy users to build their own power sources. House Bill 15 moved approval of certain private power projects from local governments to the Ohio Power Siting Board.
Supporters said the change would help Ohio meet its growing electricity demand. But officials near this first facility say the change “basically eliminated” local oversight just as data centers are increasingly seeking their own power supplies.
AEP said it has met with local officials multiple times and shared information about the project. But township officials said those conversations are not a substitute for access to the plans themselves.
In a March letter to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, local officials from Norwich, Hilliard and Columbus said it was “imperative” that firefighters receive information about the technology, facility maps and safety procedures.
“We just want our first responders to be safe,” Baird said. “But the response has been we don’t need you.”
Fast-tracked power
In 2022, Hilliard approved plans for an Amazon data center adjacent to the Darby Glen neighborhood and Hilliard Beacon Elementary School .
The power plant came later.
As data centers consumed more electricity, tech companies began seeking their own power rather than waiting for new generation to be built.
Amazon teamed up with AEP and Bloom Energy in 2025 to build a 73-megawatt facility next to its Hilliard campus.
The project calls for 228 natural gas-powered fuel cells that generate electricity through a chemical process. Bloom says the technology produces fewer traditional air pollutants than a conventional gas plant.
At first, AEP sought local zoning approval, a process that would have involved Baird since Norwich Township provides Hilliard’s fire and emergency services.
But the company withdrew its application in October.
AEP said the project no longer needed Hilliard’s approval because HB 15 gave approval authority for projects larger than 50 megawatts to the Ohio Power Siting Board. The state board had approved it in September, and “no further review is necessary.”
Trade secrets
By spring, most local officials had accepted the plant was coming and shifted focus to understanding it. Firefighters wanted facility maps, and local lawmakers requested air monitoring around the site.
Gas companies add a sulfur-based chemical that gives natural gas its rotten-egg smell. But fuel cells require that odorant to be removed because it can damage the equipment.
Emails shared with cleveland.com showed local officials asked Amazon, AEP and state regulators to consider air monitors around the plant.
AEP said it remained committed to safety, but “because the permit does not call for real-time air monitoring, we will not be scheduling an additional meeting on this topic.”
AEP also pointed to its Ohio EPA permit and a third-party study that found no noxious emissions.
“You’ve done a study on a building that doesn’t exist yet on a technology that’s never been built this big anywhere outside of South Korea,” Rothenberg said. “And I am supposed to look my neighbors in the eye and say, ’Don’t worry, they did a study.’”
As local officials pushed for more information, Baird asked to review the facility’s site plans.
AEP told cleveland.com that “fuel cell fire prevention and emergency response information and safety training will be made available to local fire departments and first responders as required by the regulatory approval for this project.”
The company added that fires involving fuel cells are rare and that proper emergency protocols would be followed if one occurred.
“Fires aren’t the only emergency,” Baird said. “We need to know the safety shut-offs if someone is having cardiac arrest near a fuel cell.”
Baird and Rothenberg said an AEP employee eventually brought physical copies of the plans to a meeting and allowed them 20 minutes to review the documents before collecting them.
They were told the plans contained trade secrets and could not be copied or distributed.
AEP did not respond to cleveland.com’s questions about that exchange. The company said it has held multiple meetings with local officials and would continue working with them as the project moves forward.
“They’ve made it very clear they won’t look back,” Baird said. “They will not look back and change something if it has been approved at the powering siting board.”
Booming market
The electric grid cannot keep pace with the energy demands of artificial intelligence.
A new data center can be up and operating within two years. Connecting a power plant to PJM, the regional grid operator that serves Ohio, can take twice that long.
HB 15 is supposed to close that gap by making it easier for large energy users to build their own power sources.
The strategy seems to be taking off.
Before lawmakers passed the bill, Ohio had one behind-the-meter power plant serving the Ohio State University. Since then, developers have proposed or won approval for projects totaling roughly 2,000 megawatts.
“House Bill 15 made Ohio a national leader in smart, free-market energy policy, and we are already seeing tangible results,” Buckeye Institute President Rea Hederman said earlier this year.
Hederman and other supporters say HB 15 will bring billions in investment, create jobs and provide the electricity needed to support Ohio’s growing technology sector.
But Rothenberg and Baird worried that Ohio’s race to build faster may come at the expense of public safety.
“Do you want the industry writing your emergency response plan?” Baird said.
A legislative fix?
Baird and Rothenberg want lawmakers to update HB 15 to require companies building major energy facilities to share detailed plans with first responders.
In their March letter, they asked lawmakers to allow for site plan access without making those documents available through public records requests.
“While we have no permit authority, we do have the responsibility of fire protection and resident protections,” they wrote.
Sen. Kent Smith of Euclid, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee, said that’s a more than reasonable request, but any change is likely months away.
Lawmakers have left for their summer break and are not expected to pass new legislation until after the November election.
Smith said emergency planners are taught to seek out experts before making major decisions, and ignoring them rarely ends well.
“Most Hollywood disaster movies start when the government ignores an expert,” he said.
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