Bill > HB2535

This bill, known as the Commercial Data Center Public Safety Act, establishes new public safety and emergency preparedness regulations specifically for "large load users"—defined as data centers and similar facilities with a massive peak electricity demand of 25 megawatts or greater. To provide context, these facilities house thousands of servers running constantly and require substantial cooling systems, battery backups, and power sources that can present unique thermal and chemical hazards for firefighters during an emergency. Under the legislation, before a building code official can issue a certificate of occupancy for a new or expanding large load user, the facility's operator must submit a detailed emergency operations floor plan and a generalized infrastructure inventory to local fire officials and emergency management coordinators, providing proof of delivery to the building code official. Additionally, operators must maintain compliance by submitting annual inventory updates or certifications that no changes have occurred, and they must report significant facility modifications—such as a power load increase exceeding 20 percent or a change in battery chemistry—within 30 days. To safeguard sensitive facility layouts from bad actors, the bill exempts these submitted documents from public disclosure under Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law, restricting access strictly to building code officials, emergency personnel, and law enforcement. Finally, the bill empowers municipal building code officials to enforce these requirements by issuing compliance orders with up to 30 days to fix violations, levying civil penalties of up to $10,000 for initial offenses and $5,000 for each continuing day, and ultimately suspending or revoking the facility's certificate of occupancy for persistent refusal to comply.