As of July 1, 2026, Florida has a new law on the books governing the massive data centers that power the internet, cloud computing, and artificial-intelligence services. CS/CS/SB 484 — "Data Centers," sponsored by Sen. Bryan Avila and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, builds a first-of-its-kind framework for how these enormous electricity and water users connect to Florida's grid — and, most importantly for everyday residents, who pays for it.
The short version: data centers are booming across Florida, and each one can consume as much electricity as a small city. SB 484 is designed to make sure that when a hyperscale data center plugs in, its costs land on the company — not on your monthly power bill. Below is a plain-English rundown of what the law does and why it matters for Floridians — with the bill record, committee path, votes, and amendments pulled directly from the LobbyScape legislative database.
The Problem SB 484 Solves
A single hyperscale data center can draw 50 megawatts or more — the equivalent of tens of thousands of homes running at once. When a user that large connects to the grid, utilities often have to build new substations, transmission lines, and generation capacity to serve it. The question every state is now wrestling with is simple: who pays for all that new infrastructure?
Without guardrails, those costs can get spread across every customer through general rate increases — meaning a retiree in Pensacola or a small business in Ocala could end up subsidizing the power needs of a multibillion-dollar tech company. SB 484 draws a bright line to prevent exactly that.
What SB 484 Actually Does
The law creates a new regulatory category — the "large load customer" — for the biggest electricity users, and then sets rules around how they're served. Each card below is one of the law's core pieces.
Big users pay their own way
Large load customers must pay for their own cost of service. The risk of nonpayment cannot "be borne by the general body of ratepayers" — so the cost of serving a giant data center can't quietly show up as a rate hike on residential and small-business bills.
New tariffs by October 1, 2026
The Florida Public Service Commission must adopt baseline tariff and service requirements for investor-owned utilities serving large load customers, with a filing deadline of October 1, 2026. It also blocks companies from splitting a single site's load into pieces to dodge the rules.
Distinct water-use permits
Data centers use enormous amounts of water for cooling. The law creates distinct large-scale data center consumptive use permit (CUP) requirements and lets water management districts or the DEP require facilities to use reclaimed water as a condition of approval — protecting drinking-water supplies.
Lights stay on first
Tariffs "may not prevent or hinder curtailment or interruption of service" during emergencies or grid instability. In plain terms: if the grid is strained, the giant user gets throttled before your home does.
No more secret deals
The law bars state agencies from signing non-disclosure agreements that hide potential data center developments from the public, and rolls back an extra 12-month public-records secrecy window these projects previously enjoyed. Communities get to know what's coming.
No "foreign country of concern"
Public electric utilities are prohibited from knowingly serving large load facilities owned or controlled by foreign countries of concern — keeping critical energy infrastructure out of adversarial hands.
Cities and counties keep their say
The law preserves local government authority over comprehensive planning and land-development regulation, and clarifies that a large load customer can't be treated as a mere "electric substation" to sidestep local zoning.
An independent study
The Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) must commission an independent study of data centers' impact on the economy, tax revenue, land, water, energy, and public health and safety — with siting and mitigation recommendations due to the Governor, Senate President, and House Speaker by July 1, 2027.
The Fine Print: Who Counts as a "Large Load Customer"?
The whole law hinges on one definition. Per the enrolled bill text indexed in LobbyScape, a "large load customer" is one with an anticipated monthly peak electrical load of 50 megawatts or more, measured as the highest average load over a 15-minute interval at a single location. Crucially:
- It includes data centers and colocation arrangements that hit the 50 MW threshold.
- It excludes loads aggregated across multiple separate locations owned by the same customer — you can't be swept in just for being a big company with many small sites.
- Utilities can't let a customer split a single site's load into pieces to duck under the threshold.
That 50 MW line is what separates ordinary commercial and industrial customers (who see no change) from the hyperscale users the law is built to address.
The Statutes Florida Just Changed
For the government-affairs audience, here's exactly where SB 484 lands in the Florida Statutes — every citation below is drawn from the bill's statute-impact analysis in LobbyScape:
Sections created or amended
- s. 163.3208 — clarifies a large load customer may not be classified as an "electric substation," closing a zoning workaround.
- s. 288.075 — removes large-scale data center information from the extended confidentiality protections economic-development agencies can otherwise claim.
- new s. 366.043 — establishes the Public Service Commission tariff and cost-of-service requirements for large load customers served by investor-owned electric utilities (gas excluded).
- s. 692.201 — bans service to large load facilities owned or controlled by "foreign countries of concern."
- s. 373.203 — adds statutory definitions of "data center" and "large-scale data center."
- new s. 373.262 — creates the large-scale data center consumptive use permit (CUP) standard, reclaimed-water conditions, disclosure and conservation-plan requirements, and a mandatory hearing.
- s. 373.239 / s. 373.229 — treats permit modifications for large-scale data centers as brand-new applications, so they get full review.
What It Means for Floridians
Strip away the regulatory language and SB 484 delivers a handful of concrete, everyday benefits for Florida residents and small businesses.
The bottom-line benefits
- Your power bill is shielded. The single biggest win: the enormous cost of hooking up and powering a hyperscale data center falls on that company, not on the "general body of ratepayers." Florida families and small businesses aren't left subsidizing Big Tech's electricity.
- Your water is protected. New consumptive-use permit rules — and the ability to require reclaimed (recycled) water for cooling — help keep data centers from drawing down the aquifers and drinking-water supplies communities depend on.
- The grid stays reliable. If demand spikes or the grid is stressed, the rules make clear that giant industrial users can be curtailed first, protecting service to homes, hospitals, and small businesses.
- You get transparency. Banning secret NDAs and closing the extra public-records window means residents and local officials can actually see when a major data center is being planned in their backyard — and weigh in.
- Local communities keep control. Cities and counties retain their zoning and land-use authority, so siting decisions stay accountable to the people who live there.
- Florida keeps the economic upside — responsibly. The law doesn't ban data centers or the jobs and investment they bring. It sets fair rules of the road so the state can welcome the industry without handing the bill to households.
A Closer Look at the Water Rules
The water provisions are more detailed than the electricity ones, and they matter enormously in a state that depends on the Floridan aquifer. New s. 373.262 tells water management districts and the DEP to deny a consumptive use permit for a large-scale data center if the withdrawal would harm water resources or conflict with local zoning and comprehensive plans — but to issue one if the use is reasonable-beneficial, doesn't interfere with existing legal users, and is in the public interest.
On top of that, any large-scale data center whose application averages 100,000 gallons per day or more must:
- Use reclaimed (recycled) water when it's feasible — factoring in availability, access, transmission lines, and discharge-permit conflicts;
- File detailed water-use disclosures and a conservation plan — covering cooling-water recycling, leak detection, water-efficient fixtures, and even employee education;
- Go through a mandatory public hearing — no permit can be rubber-stamped without one.
And because permit modifications are treated as brand-new applications, a data center can't quietly expand its water draw later without the same full review.
The Path Through the Legislature — Both Chambers
SB 484 started in the Senate, crossed to the House, and came back for a concurrence vote — a classic two-chamber journey. Every step, committee stop, and vote count below is drawn straight from the SB 484 record in LobbyScape.
🏛️ In the Senate — three committees, then the floor
- Jan 9: Sen. Bryan Avila files SB 484.
- Jan 12: Referred to three committees — Regulated Industries, Community Affairs, and Rules.
- Jan 20: Regulated Industries reports it favorable, 8–0.
- Feb 3: Community Affairs adopts a committee substitute (CS), 8–0.
- Feb 17: Rules adopts a second committee substitute (CS/CS), 24–0.
- Feb 26: On the Senate floor, the chamber adopts amendment 817402, reads the bill a third time, and passes it 37–0 — unanimously.
🏛️ In the House — straight to the floor
- Feb 26: The bill arrives in the House "in messages" the same day the Senate passes it.
- Mar 10: Rather than route it through House committees, the House places it directly on its Special Order Calendar (the policy had already been vetted through House companion bills — see below) and gives it a first reading (Engrossed 1).
- Mar 11: The House reads it a second time, adopts Amendment 383957, reads it a third time, and passes it 92–16.
🔁 Back to the Senate — concurrence
- Mar 11: Because the House changed the bill, it returns to the Senate "in returning messages."
- Mar 13: The Senate concurs in House Amendment 383957 and passes the final version 31–6, then orders it engrossed and enrolled. (The vote is closer than the Senate's original 37–0 — a handful of members who backed the Senate version declined to endorse the House-amended one.)
- July 1, 2026: The enrolled bill, signed by the Governor, takes effect ("except as otherwise provided").
Two useful notes for anyone tracking this. First, the House never sent SB 484 to a committee of its own — it moved on the strength of its House companion bills, which LobbyScape links to the same record: HB 1007 (similar), HB 1517 (compare), and Senate companion SB 1118 (similar). Second, the pattern of votes tells the story: the bill was unanimous through all three Senate committees and on initial Senate passage (37–0), and only picked up opposition once it reached the more partisan House floor — a sign the core "ratepayers shouldn't subsidize data centers" principle had exceptionally broad buy-in.
In all, LobbyScape tracked 22 official actions, 4 recorded votes, and 14 filed amendments across both chambers for this one bill.
Who Should Be Watching This
SB 484 kicks off a rulemaking and implementation process that will unfold over the rest of 2026 and into 2027 — and several groups have a direct stake in how it takes shape.
Investor-owned electric utilities
FPL, Duke Energy Florida, TECO and others must file new large-load tariffs with the PSC by October 1, 2026. The details of those filings will shape how the cost line is actually drawn.
Data center developers
Hyperscale operators and site-selection teams now face a defined cost-of-service, water-permitting, and transparency regime in Florida. Early engagement in the PSC rulemaking matters.
Counties & municipalities
Local planning and zoning authority is explicitly preserved. Local officials will be balancing economic-development interest against water, land, and infrastructure impacts.
Water management districts
The five WMDs and the DEP now have new CUP tools — including reclaimed-water conditions — for large-scale data centers. Their permitting posture will be closely watched.
How LobbyScape Tracked This
Every step of SB 484 — committee stops, amendments, floor votes in both chambers, the enrolled text, and the Governor's signature — is indexed in the LobbyScape platform, along with the PSC rulemaking that follows. The provisions, vote counts, and effective date summarized above are pulled straight from the bill record and official Florida Senate materials.
If you represent an electric utility, a data center developer, a county or city, a water management district, an environmental organization, or any business watching Florida's energy and land-use policy, the SB 484 story is just beginning — the PSC tariffs land this fall and the OPPAGA study follows. Schedule a 30-minute demo and we'll pull up the SB 484 timeline, the votes, and the rulemaking calendar on your screen.