Valara Data Center Lawsuit Hearing Held Before Public Service Commission of South Carolina

by: RipLey Simone

Posted: Aug 5, 2026 / 10:38 PM EDT

Updated: Aug 5, 2026 / 10:38 PM EDT

COLUMBIA, S.C. ( WSPA) — The Spartanburg County fight over the development of what would be one of the largest data centers in South Carolina has made its way to the state capital.

After a lawsuit was filed against Valara Holdings, LLC, a subsidiary of NorthMark Strategies, a hearing was held before the Public Service Commission of South Carolina on Wednesday.

The hearing was to determine if construction at the proposed 450-megawatt Valara data center site can continue. Yet after more than four hours of discussion, no decision was made.

Hearing breakdown

The lawsuit was brought forth by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) who argued on behalf of Concerned Citizens of Spartanburg County and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Along with Valara Holdings, LLC, Spartanburg County and Spartanburg County Administrator are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

During the hearing, SELC Attorney Frank Holleman argued that construction for the data center cannot, and should not, proceed without formal regulatory oversight.

He also argued that the data center is in violation of the state's Utility Facility Siting and Environmental Protection Act.

The first section of the act reads: "No person shall commence to construct a major utility facility without first having obtained a certificate issued with respect to such facility by the commission."

Legal counsel for the defendants and plaintiff fiercely argued the definitions of certain words in the act and how they are applied in this specific situation.

In the act, the term " person" includes "any individual, group, firm, partnership, corporation, cooperative, association, government subdivision, government agency, local government, municipality, any other organization, or any combination of any of the foregoing, and shall include the South Carolina Public Service Authority."

The act defines the term " major utility facility" as "(a) electric generating plant and associated facilities designed for, or capable of, operation at a capacity of more than seventy-five megawatts."

The lawsuit states that in 2025, Valara applied and received approval for 50 megawatts of onsite power generation by the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services (DES).

However, in December, three months after receiving the approval, SELC said Valara contacted DES about a modification to its air permit, requesting an additional 400 MW of onsite gas-fired generation.

The lawsuit said this represents an eight-fold increase over Valara's original air permit.

SELC counsel argued that the language in the state code is plain and clearly defines what "person" and "major utility facility" means.

Attorneys for the Valara data center disagreed.

Andrew D'Antoni, attorney for Valara Holdings, LLC, said "it's crystal clear that the Utility Facility Siting Act applies to utility facilities, not private self-generation."

He argued that the data center is "purely private self-generation", not a "public utility or utility", which is defined in the act.

The act reads "public utility or utility" is "any person engaged in the generating, distributing, sale, delivery, or furnishing of electricity for public use."

On behalf of Valara, D'Antoni requested a dismissal of the petition because the data center will have "no impact on the public."

He added the facility cannot and will not export electricity to the public grid in Spartanburg County and therefore does not need to comply with the law.

After much discussion from attorneys, representatives from the South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff approached the commissioners with concerns about the data center.

They said the language of the law is clear and alleviates any confusion on what Valara and the commission must do.

"If your facility has a generating capacity over 75MW and you're included in the definition of person, which is very broad in the Siting Act, then you need to get a certificate for that facility," the representative said. "Valara is asking the court to read outside the plain language of the statute, which is misplaced."

Public service commissioners had many questions for legal counsel and regulatory officials but held off on public vote and comment.

In the weeks following the hearing, commissioners will go over arguments and requests from both sides of the lawsuit and issue a decision by September 4.

Concerned Citizens of Spartanburg County

Since the first mention of Valara's data center in Spartanburg County, many residents have been vocal about their concerns regarding the size and potential environmental impacts.

More than 60 community members, many of whom live next to the data center construction site, made the journey to Columbia to attend the hearing. Residents packed the room to hear the oral arguments.

One of those residents, Mark Felk, is named in the lawsuit against Valara.

Felk lives across the street from the data center construction site on Pine Street and described his experience to 7NEWS.

"It's been extreme chaos. We've seen working occur 24 hours a day. You hear construction equipment 24 hours a day. It's been the most rapid expansion that I've ever seen in my life," he said. "You have dust, you have soot, you have noise. And then you have traffic from all the workers going to the site."

He also felt the lack of transparency from NorthMark Strategies and Spartanburg County throughout this process has been troubling.

"It's very obvious that [Valara Holdings] avoided a permitting process involving the Siting Act. If they had just done that on the front end, we wouldn't be here right now," Felk said. "It would have answered all the environmental concerns that all of these many neighbors have."

Data center construction

The data center construction is well underway and showed no signs of halting despite the active lawsuit and hearing.

7NEWS crews captured shots of the construction site in Spartanburg County as the hearing was taking place.