JEA Faces Data Center Power Requests Up to 1,248 Megawatts, Enough for About 700,000 Homes

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Data center developers have asked JEA for far more electricity than the utility can deliver today, according to a year of JEA public records reviewed by the Jacksonville Daily Record and News4Jax. The largest request on file, from a company called Cecil LMNO in September 2024, sought 1,248 megawatts. The outlets said that is enough power for about 700,000 Jacksonville homes, or more than 100 NFL stadiums the size of EverBank Stadium. It was the highest single demand in the records.

Many of the other proposals were smaller, but the reporting says they still exceeded the largest load JEA can serve to a single customer. One megawatt equals one million watts. The records show a wide gap between what a typical large user draws in Jacksonville and what data center developers want.

What Jacksonville's biggest users draw now

JEA serves six data centers today, and each uses fewer than 10 megawatts. Some sit in downtown buildings. The largest customer by monthly peak in 2025 was a steel company, which hit nearly 64 megawatts for its furnace and another 18 megawatts for other parts of its facility.

The paper and cardboard maker WestRock had the third-highest annual consumption in the records, with a 40-megawatt peak. Set beside those numbers, the biggest data center request would be roughly 20 times the steel company's furnace peak. That comparison shows why JEA officials describe the inquiries as a different scale of demand.

What JEA says it can do

Jordan Pope, JEA's interim chief administrative officer, told the outlets the loads are "a bit too high right now for us to serve today." Pope said serving the companies that have inquired often takes years, which "may not meet their requirements." Each site would need its own dedicated substation, and possibly several, Pope said.

Equipment is part of the delay. Pope said long-lead items such as substation transformers can take years to acquire and install, and that supply chain constraints add to the wait. That timeline means even an approved project would not draw power for a long stretch.

JEA officials also suspect some inquiries are not serious relocation plans. They believe some come from firms comparing electricity costs and infrastructure across several cities. The records do not say how many of the requests fall into that category.

A new tariff for big users

JEA is putting in place what it calls a "large load tariff." The stated goal is to keep current customers from subsidizing new high-demand users and to make sure every customer pays a fair share. The details of the tariff were not part of the reporting reviewed for this story.

Pope said residents can weigh in through JEA board meetings, and that the City Council has discussed data center planning and zoning rules. Nassau County is working through its own data center draft rules, a separate effort covered earlier by Jax Times. The full News4Jax story includes a list of the data center inquiries to JEA.

Source: Jacksonville Daily Record and News4Jax, Oct. 30, 2026; reviewed by Jax Times.