Niobrara NatGas is planning to develop a $4.2 billion project, ‘Digital Fort Knox,’ a 662-acre data center and energy production facility in northern Colorado. Niobrara general manager Craig Harrison explained, ‘The data center has its own natural gas supply that also powers a fuel cell farm, heating and cooling across the proposed complex. Our next step is to find the right high balance sheet organization to seize on the potential of this development.’
The site, engineered by CH2M HILL, will enable conventional, cloud computing data center development and innovative ‘microgrid’ development scenarios with a high level of energy security and reliability.
Niobrara improbably claims the site to be capable of ‘sustainable perpetual motion energy,’ with ‘ten to fifteen years of uninterruptable gas contracts.’ These will hedge the data centers’ main cost, energy and provide protection from power outages. On site gas supply lines have a 1.5 billion cubic feet per day capacity. Power ‘could be’ augmented with renewable energies from solar, fuel cells, energy storage and wind. More from Niobrara.
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