Texas Tribune, by Berens Garcia
WILLISIE COUNTY — Scattered across acres of open fields, one morning last month stood at length, some running their blades with the wind as designed. Others did not move at all.
Inefficiency at the Las Majadas Wind Project was by design. This set of windmills in the Rio Grande Valley was generating more power than it was using. Now a company has plans to revive these turbines.
Solona Holdings, a data center developer focused on using renewable energy, broke ground here on its data center that will be used to host bitcoin and manage artificial intelligence data. Statewide includes data centers, housing servers and infrastructure that store and process our online activity. Their growth has been fueled in part by the increasing use of AI.
Since data centers face scrutiny on the energy needed to power these facilities, as well as the water needed for their cooling systems, the facility aims to prevent waste from using energy that would otherwise be unused.
“It became clear to us that there was a lot of energy out there. A lot of it was wasted,” said John Bellisier, CEO of Soluna Holdings. “And if you tap into that wasted energy, you can really power that next revolution without materially changing the trajectory of our climate.”
Electricity is wasted, or “trapped,” largely because of inadequate infrastructure, according to Jeff Clark, president and CEO of the Advance Power Alliance, a renewable energy advocacy group that supports renewable energy.
Clark said the state’s grid has not kept pace with where new generation is being built. In particular, there aren’t enough transmission lines to supply electricity generated in high-demand areas, especially rural Texas.
“Unless new transmission lines are built to connect the two, the power that can be generated in these regions often has nowhere to go,” Clark said.
This new data center, Project Katy, is an example of what’s called elastic load. And being close to where the electricity is being generated means it won’t require the use of long-distance transmission lines.
According to a 2013 report, at peak capacity, the data center would consume 166 megawatts of energy. The first phase will be built to provide 83 megawatts of computing capacity for Bitcoin. A second 83 MW expansion will support artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
Solona hopes to have part of the facility operational in December with plans to complete the first phase in June or July.
The Las Majadas Wind Project, the farm that will power the data center, EDF Renewables North America and Masdar, a renewable energy company based in the United Arab Emirates.
Las Majadas is one of a handful of wind energy projects located in Wilsey County, a county of more than 20,000 people on the northeast corner of the Rio Grande Valley. Its largely rural landscape with wide-open farmland makes it an ideal location for projects such as the Los Ventos Wind Farm, one of the nation’s largest wind projects.
Willis County Judge Aurelio “Cater” Guerra said securing these projects is a daily effort to allow his small county to prosper.
Solona estimates the project will create 18 permanent, direct jobs in the first two to three years during the first phase. They expect an additional 75 jobs during the construction phase.
Regardless of the number of jobs, Gera said those positions will pay more. And, he said, the most important benefit is the taxable value it will bring to the county.
“Price is how counties survive,” he said. “Unlike cities that rely more on sales (taxes), counties rely more on value, and so these types of projects bring value.”
“For a small county like ours that operates on a $9 million budget, I think that’s great,” he added.
Texas is uniquely positioned to see more of these types of projects.
Using “stranded” renewable energy in Texas is very easy to use because of the favorable rules of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
Such policies include netting, which allows data centers to use energy directly from power generators, avoiding fees from Ercote for using electricity from the grid.
Texas also allows “sleeves” when an intermediary retailer sells renewable energy from a generator to a buyer for a fee, allowing buyers to buy energy at a negotiated price.
The benefit of data stability is important for data centers at the cost they need to afford through long-term, predictable contracts, even during times of high market volatility.
These benefits could play a role in the state building more data centers that can use the trapped energy.
Clarke said electricity demand across the country is expected to double in the next 10 years. To meet this demand, he said, there will be collaboration between solar, wind, natural gas, nuclear and energy storage technologies.
“The vision we have is a ‘peak’ power mix—every resource working together to meet the growing demand for electricity,” said Clark. “Projects like this one in Wolsey County are just the beginning of how flexible, innovative solutions can strengthen our grid and grow local economies.”
Gammon also expects to see more partnerships as more data centers take advantage of wind farms that are underutilized.
“It’s definitely a sign of things to come,” Gammon said. “There’s not enough power to power all the data centers that want to be built. You can’t build it fast.”
Part of the reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported by Methodist Health Care Ministries of South Texas, Inc.
Disclosure: Advanced Power Alliance has been a financial supporter of the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonprofit news organization funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial advocates have no role in Tribune journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article first appeared on the Texas Tribune.
