--- title: When can a power company take your land for data center... description: As AI data centers multiply across the US, power companies are increasingly using eminent domain to acquire land for transmission lines. The legal standard... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/when-can-a-power-company-take-your-land-for-data-center-infrastructure--0r2yxnwbs twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure? | daily.dev og:description: As AI data centers multiply across the US, power companies are increasingly using eminent domain to acquire land for transmission lines. The legal standard... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/when-can-a-power-company-take-your-land-for-data-center-infrastructure--0r2yxnwbs og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/0r2yxNWBS.png og:image:alt: When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure? **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary As AI data centers multiply across the US, power companies are increasingly using eminent domain to acquire land for transmission lines. The legal standard requires seizures to serve a 'public use,' but courts interpret this variably. The 2005 Kelo v. City of New London ruling broadly permitted economic development as public use, though 45 states enacted reform laws afterward. Key legal questions center on whether transmission lines built primarily to serve a single private data center qualify as public use, especially when they don't benefit in-state customers. State courts in Michigan, Ohio, and Oklahoma have prohibited purely private-benefit seizures, while South Dakota and Vermont have upheld utility condemnations tied to grid reliability. Landowners may have stronger grounds challenging these actions under state constitutions than federal law. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Can a power company use eminent domain to build a transmission line that mainly serves one data center? Courts have generally allowed it when the line provides at least some benefit to in-state customers or improves grid reliability, as affirmed by the South Dakota and Vermont supreme courts. However, the Mississippi Supreme Court rejected a similar seizure in 1984 because the line would not have benefited any in-state customers, showing outcomes depend heavily on whether local benefit can be shown. _Anyone tracking AI infrastructure and land-use disputes can follow legal developments like this on daily.dev._ ### What did the Kelo v. City of New London Supreme Court decision rule about eminent domain for economic development? The 2005 Kelo decision held that economic development qualifies as a valid public use under the Fifth Amendment, allowing New London, Connecticut to seize homes for private redevelopment near a Pfizer facility. The redevelopment never happened and Pfizer later left the city. In response, 45 states passed eminent domain reform laws limiting such takings. _Readers weighing property rights against infrastructure growth can track this debate on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI's data-centre land rush reaches Native reservations](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-s-data-centre-land-rush-reaches-native-reservations-o5m0bynzl) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Maine Is About to Become the First State to Ban Major New Data Centers](https://daily.dev/posts/maine-is-about-to-become-the-first-state-to-ban-major-new-data-centers-ljxcne2ue) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Coatue has a plan to buy up land for data centers, possibly for Anthropic](https://daily.dev/posts/coatue-has-a-plan-to-buy-up-land-for-data-centers-possibly-for-anthropic-nwuifzsdg) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Cape Town to write new rules for big data centre applications](https://daily.dev/posts/cape-town-to-write-new-rules-for-big-data-centre-applications-etbdpsdr9) · TechCentral · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/when-can-a-power-company-take-your-land-for-data-center-infrastructure--0r2yxnwbs) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/when-can-a-power-company-take-your-land-for-data-center-infrastructure--0r2yxnwbs","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/when-can-a-power-company-take-your-land-for-data-center-infrastructure--0r2yxnwbs"},"datePublished":"2026-07-20T10:09:05.252Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:02:54.239Z","description":"As AI data centers multiply across the US, power companies are increasingly using eminent domain to acquire land for transmission lines. 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