Image credit: AI-generated using ChatGPT (OpenAI)
“Bring Your Own Power” for Data Centers
What does it mean for land conservation?
The recent news stories of a force majeure being issued by Oracle for its New Mexico data center has many people further researching the impact of “Bring Your Own Power” (BYOP) for data centers. Oracle wants to build their own power sources, but is being delayed because New Mexico has been denying permits to build a natural gas pipeline. This raises the question of how data centers can provide their own power. Can they bring their own fuel or even go “fuel-free” with their own solar farm? What about wind power and other options? Let’s delve into these matters and what this all means for land conservation.
What is “Bring Your Own Power”?
“Bring Your Own Power” (BYOP) is a strategy being used by data centers to build on-site energy generation facilities. BYOP is done to bypass multi-year electrical grid connection queues driven by the artificial intelligence boom as well as shield operators from regional price shocks and shared infrastructure costs. BYOP is not necessarily “off the grid.” Although BYOP can be full where the data center supplies essentially 100% of its power from dedicated resources, it can also be partial in that the data center supplies some of its power from dedicated resources and gets the balance from the grid. Partial BYOP is commonly used for handling peak demands and grid emergencies. The key difference between Full and Partial BYOP is how much of the data center’s electricity supply is independently provided by the data-center developer rather than the traditional electric grid. The following table provides further details on the differences.
What are Energy and Fuel Sources used for BYOP?
As depicted on the graphic, there are a number of options for providing fuel and energy:
- Solar: Converts sunlight into electricity using photovoltaic panels or concentrated solar power systems.
- Wind: Uses turbines to convert the kinetic energy of moving air into electricity.
- Natural Gas: Burns methane-rich gas to generate electricity, typically using gas turbines or combined-cycle power plants.
- Nuclear: Uses energy released from splitting atomic nuclei, typically uranium, to produce heat that generates electricity.
- Geothermal: Uses heat from beneath the Earth’s surface to generate electricity or provide direct heating.
- Hydrogen: Uses hydrogen as an energy carrier that can generate electricity in fuel cells or through combustion, with its environmental impact depending on how the hydrogen is produced. For data centers, primarily used for energy storage in conjunction with energy sources like solar.
- Energy Storage (Batteries): Stores electricity for later use, helping balance supply and demand and providing backup power when generation is unavailable.
In fact, many of these are used in conjunction with one another. Natural gas and storage are often used for backup power. GigaWatt.land, a 92,000-acre energy and data center development platform in Northeast Arizona, is an example of multi-source onsite generation where they provide solar, long-duration storage, natural gas and geothermal.
In the efforts to get power quickly, land availability plays a factor. Along with the land required for the data center itself, there is also a land footprint for the power sources.
How much land is needed for BYOP?
There is the land needed for the data center itself. A typical modern hyperscale or AI-driven data center campus requires anywhere from 100 to over 500 acres, with average parcel sizes for new developments surging to 225 to 250 acres, and mega-campuses for advanced AI workloads frequently exceeding 1,000 acres. And there is the land needed for the energy supply. The amount of land for the energy supply depends on the energy strategy. BYOP partial with the grid supplying the remainder of the power requires less land than full BYOP. Different options for fuel and energy require varying land footprints, especially for full BYOP where the differences are quite dramatic. Of course, the size of the data center affects the amount of required energy which in turn determines the land footprint.
The following chart gives illustrative ranges of the land footprint in acres and American football fields for different energy strategies for a standard hyperscale site of 100 MW Load and a Mega-Scale AI Training Facility of 500 MW Load.
Image credit: Chart done by author with help from Claude.
To provide a perspective of the land demand, Illinois has a land area of roughly 55,519 square miles (approximately 35,532,160 acres).
Without getting too deep into the weeds, here are some things to consider for each strategy.
Natural Gas can reduce grid dependence but creates air-emissions concerns. It also needs to be next to an existing gas pipeline or a pipeline provided by the data center. The latter approach can have its own problems as Oracle experienced.
Nuclear has a smaller land footprint but raises water-use and thermal-discharge questions. Its land footprint depends on the type of reactor.
Geothermal has relatively small surface footprints in some configurations but is restricted due to its site-specific water and geological considerations.
Solar is greatly affected by when the sun shines and the need to overbuild capacity to provide continuous round-the-clock energy.
Wind turbines themselves do not need that much land but they need to be spaced properly to be effective which causes its land footprint to be so large. Of course, wind availability is a major factor.
Hydrogen requires other sources of energy or supporting infrastructure. Almost all of the land is solar panels, and the hydrogen loop needs more of them than any other option because so much energy is lost on the way through hydrogen.
Battery energy storage systems (BESS) require additional land and has its own material and end-of-life considerations.
The point is that Full BYOP can take a fair amount of land. These illustrative ranges are provided as a means to indicate the size of that demand. Every individual data center will have its own variables that will determine the exact amount of acreage.
And it should be stressed that full BYOP doesn’t automatically mean “more sustainable.” It can reduce pressure on the regional grid, but it can also shift the environmental footprint from the electrical grid to new land and water infrastructure.
A data center could have 100% dedicated generation on paper but remain physically interconnected with the grid for reliability, balancing, emergency power, or other purposes. For example, unless the solar panels are physically wired directly into the back of the data center building with zero outside connection, the project must use the public grid to transport power.
What does this mean for land conservation?
As always, there does not appear to be a perfect answer. Technologies that are best for the climate also require a lot of land. It was not the intent of this blog to provide a solution to such a complex topic as data center power and BYOP. We did want to provide a perspective from an organization that is dedicated to land and water conservation.
The Conservation Foundation has been consistent in its belief of building data centers responsibly. BYOP is another aspect of this. There will be trade-offs. The Conservation Foundation is not anti-development but advocates for responsible development and use of land. For example, we encourage dual-use of land such as agrivoltaics. We believe there are practical strategies to reduce the footprint. Hybrid microgrids and partial BYOP using as much onsite and grid renewable as possible with natural gas as backup reduce required land footprints, while next generation solar panels which boost efficiency shrink the total land acreage needed for identical energy generation. Nuclear energy is controversial but still should get serious consideration. Illinois recently lifted its moratorium on new nuclear projects.
Ready to expand the standard of thinking for land and water conservation? For more than 55 years, The Conservation Foundation has been a thought leader providing education on new and exciting ways of doing conservation and applying them to everyday life. The Conservation Foundation is also a forum for folks to push the envelope and challenge people in their thinking. We are always looking for creative, hard-working people – become a member today!
Feel free to comment on this blog with additional ideas.
By Steve Stawarz, Oak Brook
DuPage County Community Council Member, The Conservation Foundation