I'm also in favor of making them pay, and in the end I'm expecting/hoping that's what will happen. But either way, when negotiating it's better to start from a harder position (no building) and soften up (limited building, cover the cost of extra electricity) then vice versa. Plus I'm sure some DCs would just pick another spot if forced to compromise; there's always some red county out there willing to do whatever just for a company to build there, that's why a lot of the DCs are being build in LA/AL/MS etc.

It might also be more complicated than you might think though due to the complexities of increasing power supply. Power companies also use prices raises to discourage residential use and conserve the existing supply for larger customers. They can't refuse to service residential but they also can't increase supply yet, so they just raise the prices until residential users "choose" to lower their power consumption.

My old power company told me it would be a temporary increase until supply was increased, but they said that the last time and it never happened. which, speaking of NOVA, was caused by the Loundon County allowing more data centers to be built. They get the money but since the power grid is regional everyone gets the bill :) .