NCDEQ issues Amazon and Duke Energy air permits with added monitoring
RALEIGH — North Carolina environmental regulators have issued separate air quality permits allowing Amazon Data Services and Duke Energy Progress to operate a combined 645 engines associated with an Amazon data center in Richmond County.
The Division of Air Quality said the final permits include emissions limits, control requirements and additional testing, monitoring and reporting provisions added after the agency received public comments.
Amazon’s permit authorizes 588 emergency backup engines at the company’s Energy Way Tech Campus on Airport Road in Hamlet. The engines may operate during power outages and for limited maintenance, testing and activation periods.
Duke Energy’s permit authorizes 57 temporary, nonemergency “bridge power” engines. Those engines will supply electricity to the Amazon facility until it can be connected to the electric grid.
Duke must retire the temporary engines within one year after they begin operating, according to the Department of Environmental Quality.
The agency said Amazon’s final permit clarifies fuel-use monitoring requirements. Duke’s permit requires additional initial generator testing and specifies that electricity from the temporary engines may be used only for the Amazon facility.
Both permits require additional recordkeeping and reporting.
The Division of Air Quality conducted a joint public hearing and accepted comments for 30 days before finalizing the permits. Commenters raised concerns about emissions and the decision to regulate the Amazon and Duke operations through two separate permits.
DEQ said the activities are controlled by different companies, have different purposes and are expected to operate on different timelines. Under normal operations, Amazon’s backup engines and Duke’s temporary engines will not run at the same time.
The agency said treating the projects as a single permitted operation could have allowed higher total emissions.
Air-dispersion modeling reviewed by the division found that emissions from each project are not expected to violate health-based air quality levels. The agency also evaluated potential uncontrolled emissions of acrolein, a toxic air pollutant, from Amazon’s engines and said those emissions are expected to remain within applicable levels.
The permits follow Richmond County’s approval of a local incentive package for the data center. DEQ noted that its air-permitting authority does not extend to land use, project siting or electricity-supply decisions.
Final permits, permit reviews, hearing officers’ reports and related application materials are available through the department’s online records.
Editor’s note:
This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and fact-checked by a member of the NC Political News editorial team before publication.
