County
Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
County ranked by announced AI data-center load
960 MW
Announced AI load
Population (2024 ACS)
328K
Median HH income (2024 ACS)
$63,691
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Key takeaways
- Luzerne County has 325,978 residents and a median household income of $62,321. The county seat Wilkes-Barre has 44,328 residents and lives with a 30.1% poverty rate, more than double the Pennsylvania state average.Source: Census ACS 2023 B01003, B19013 (Luzerne County, PA) + sources[0] (Wikipedia: Wilkes-Barre, PA)
- AWS's Susquehanna Campus is a behind-the-meter colocation directly connected at 960 MW to the 2,514 MW Susquehanna nuclear plant in Salem Township. The full power purchase agreement scales to 1,680 to 1,920 MW by 2032 with an expected total contract value of $18 billion through 2042.Source: sources[1] (Wikipedia: Susquehanna Steam Electric Station) + data/sites/data_centers.csv
- PPL Electric Utilities residential rates fell 0.3% from 2021 to 2023, so the bill-side impact of the AWS deal is structurally insulated from the residential tariff. The campus power flows directly from Talen Energy's nuclear units, not from the grid PPL serves.Source: data/cache/utility_rate_yoy.csv (PPL Electric Utilities Corp, PA) + sources[1] (Wikipedia: Susquehanna Steam Electric Station)
- Home prices rose 21.0% over three years against a median home value of $163,800, the largest percent gain in any batch-3 county after Niagara. Wilkes-Barre's population peaked at over 86,000 in the 1930s and has fallen by half, so the AI build is landing on a deflated housing base poised for a sharp post-Susquehanna repricing.Source: data/cache/realestate_yoy.csv (FIPS 42079) + Census ACS 2023 B25077 + sources[0] (Wikipedia: Wilkes-Barre, PA)
Local socioeconomics
- Luzerne County is 15.9% Hispanic (51,917 residents), the highest Hispanic share of any Pennsylvania AI county. The Wyoming Valley's Puerto Rican and Dominican migration since the 2000s has reshaped a county that was overwhelmingly white through the anthracite era.Source: Census ACS 2023 B03003 (Luzerne County, PA)
- Median gross rent in Luzerne is $958 against a county poverty rate of 15.4%. The AWS Susquehanna behind-the-meter deal lands in a county where one in seven residents is below the poverty line and rent absorbs the second-largest budget item for most households.Source: Census ACS 2023 B25064 and B17001 (Luzerne County, PA)
- Only 86.3% of Luzerne households subscribe to wired broadband, and Wilkes-Barre's pockets of fiber-less rowhomes overlap the same blocks with the 30.1% urban poverty rate. The AI economy is energizing in a county whose residential digital divide is structural.Source: Census ACS 2023 B28002 (Luzerne County, PA)
- Manufacturing still employs 12.0% of Luzerne's workforce (18,462 jobs), down from peak coal-era industrial employment but still well above the Pennsylvania average. The legacy plant-trades labor pool overlaps with the kind of operator skill base Talen Energy hires for the Susquehanna nuclear units.Source: Census ACS 2023 C24050 (Luzerne County, PA)
Campuses in this county