Abatement (tax abatement)

A formal agreement under which a local government waives some or all of the property taxes on a project for a set number of years. Cloverleaf is expected to ask Lowndes County for a 30-year property-tax abatement on Project Red Clay. Under HB399 (effective January 1, 2027) the maximum abatement falls to 20 years for new projects.

Behind-the-meter

A power-supply arrangement where a large electricity user (like a data center) is connected directly to a generation source rather than through the utility's main grid. Federal regulators (FERC) have rejected several behind-the-meter arrangements for hyperscale data centers, forcing them back onto the regulated grid where the cost lands on ratepayers.

Capacity-market clearing price

The price set in regional electricity auctions (run by RTOs/ISOs like PJM and MISO) for guaranteed future power capacity. Capacity-market clearing prices in PJM jumped 833% for the 2025–2026 delivery year, driven by data-center load. Those costs land on residential bills.

CACF — Central Alabama Community Foundation

The 501(c)(3) community foundation through which Cloverleaf has pledged $10 million in 'community benefits' for Lowndes County. $1M up front; $9M milestone-gated. CACF holds approximately $107 million in charitable assets per its most recent IRS Form 990.

Closed-loop cooling

A cooling system that recirculates water within the data center rather than continuously drawing fresh water. Cloverleaf has described Project Red Clay's cooling as 'closed-loop' to imply low water use, but the term refers to one cooling circuit inside the building. The facility as a whole still consumes makeup water, evaporates water from cooling towers, and consumes water indirectly through the power plants that serve it.

Cooling tower

A large industrial structure that rejects heat from a data center by evaporating water. Hyperscale facilities run cooling towers continuously and exhaust water vapor 24 hours a day.

Diesel backup generator

On-site combustion-engine generators used to keep a data center's servers running through grid outages. Hyperscale facilities maintain banks of these. They emit 200–600 times more nitrogen oxides than equivalent natural-gas generation; during extended outages a single facility can emit its full annual permitted NOx load in a matter of days.

Education millage

The portion of property tax dedicated to funding local schools. The coalition's fourth demand is that the Lowndes County Commission carve the education portion of the millage out of any abatement granted to Project Red Clay, by formal Commission resolution.

Gigawatt (GW)

1,000 megawatts. Cloverleaf publicly states it is pursuing 10 to 15 gigawatts of peak power capacity across all its sites — meaning Lowndes is one node in a much larger national pipeline.

GS-5 large-load rate class (Virginia)

A new electricity rate class created by the Virginia State Corporation Commission in November 2025, effective January 2027. GS-5 applies to customers demanding 25 megawatts or more (i.e., hyperscale data centers) and requires them to pay for at least 85% of their contracted distribution and transmission demand and 60% of generation demand — preventing data centers from passing those costs to residential ratepayers.

HB399

Alabama House Bill 399, passed unanimously by the Alabama Legislature and effective January 1, 2027. Caps the data-center property-tax abatement at 20 years (down from 30) unless a binding community-benefits agreement is filed with the state. Imposes state sales and use tax on equipment purchases for ≥100 MW data centers. See /hb399 for the full explainer.

Hyperscaler / hyperscale

A 'hyperscale data center' is one of the largest class of data centers — typically multiple million-square-foot buildings consuming city-scale electricity and water. 'Hyperscalers' are the companies that operate them: Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, and a handful of others. Cloverleaf does not operate hyperscale data centers; it assembles sites and sells them to hyperscalers.

LCEDC — Lowndes County Economic Development Commission

The body recruiting Cloverleaf on behalf of Lowndes County. By LCEDC structure, the sitting Chairman of the County Commission also serves as Vice-President of the LCEDC — meaning the recruiting body and the abatement-voting body share leadership. The LCEDC's two official websites list conflicting rosters; neither current as of May 2026.

Megawatt (MW)

One million watts. A single hyperscale data center can draw 100+ megawatts. Project Red Clay would consume approximately three times the power of all of Lowndes County combined.

PSC — Alabama Public Service Commission

The state body that regulates utilities — including Alabama Power. The PSC is where ratepayer-protection tariffs (like Virginia's GS-5 large-load class) get filed. The Alabama PSC has not yet adopted protections of that kind for hyperscale data-center loads.

Ratepayer

A customer of a regulated electric or water utility. The coalition's third demand is that any abatement be conditioned on protections at the Public Service Commission preventing hyperscale data center costs from being shifted to residential ratepayers.

Recusal

Stepping aside from a vote because of a structural or financial conflict of interest. The coalition is asking Chairman King to publicly commit to recusing from any Project Red Clay-related vote on the basis of his LCEDC Vice-President role.

Special-purpose vehicle (SPV)

A separate legal entity (often a limited liability company) formed to hold a single project. Cloverleaf operates its Monroe County, Georgia project through an SPV named 'Rum Creek DevCo LLC.' Lowndes County filings are likely to use a similarly-named entity rather than 'Cloverleaf Infrastructure' directly — search for 'DevCo LLC' in any public records request.

Substation

An electrical-distribution facility that steps voltage up or down between transmission and distribution. A hyperscale data center requires its own on-site substation to serve its load, plus upgrades at upstream substations on the grid.

Tariff (in utility regulation)

The schedule of rates and conditions a regulated utility files with the Public Service Commission. Cloverleaf's claim that 'current rate-payers will have no impact from future data centers' is a promise — not a tariff filing. Without a binding tariff, the promise is unenforceable.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

The federal civil rights statute prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. The DOJ filed a Title VI environmental-justice settlement with the Alabama Department of Public Health in May 2023 over the Lowndes County sanitation crisis; the Trump-era DOJ terminated the settlement in April 2025. The underlying conditions and documentary record remain.

Plain-English Q&A →The 5 demands