When the grid said no, this project moved forward anyway

The developer knew a little about us (mainly that we did onsite power), but building a power plant is a big undertaking. So we took a business-case approach to the solution, evaluating a range of technical options to deliver power while also making sure any plan we considered penciled financially and capitalized on the project’s revenue potential amid the ongoing AI data-center boom. After all, first to power means first to revenue — a fundamental underpinning of scaling an AI data center portfolio.

So we did. In a scenario we’d seen play out many times before, however, the utility turned out to have neither the capacity nor the political will to deliver on their promise.

As we saw it, the developer now had three choices. And with apologies to the Choose Your Own Adventure books we loved as kids, they looked like this:

Over plenty of late-night phone calls, he eventually adopted our confidence around generating power onsite, and decided to commit.

The first step in any onsite power strategy comes down to answering one deceptively simple question:

What method of power is actually best for the project?

Of course, the answer depends on far more than generating electricity. Equipment availability, permitting, community acceptance, deployment schedules, capital costs, long-term operating economics, and a clear financing/investment strategy all influence the power path that ultimately makes the most sense.

Because of this project’s massive scale, every major power-generation technology was on the table. Fuel cells. Linear generators. Turbines. Gas engines. We evaluated each one, modeling not only technical feasibility, but deployment timelines, capital requirements and long-term operating costs.

And in every scenario, we found that the client would see serious financial benefits down the road due to the strength of the power-leasing markets.

“This process proved what we already knew: that when you own your power, the economic advantages will seriously outweigh the upfront cost,” said Smart Grid Co-Founder Rendell Johnson.

In the end, though, our analysis and recommended financing/investment strategy pointed toward a power solution we felt was particularly beneficial — and that hadn’t even been the original plan.

While we were working through our long planning checklist, the development team got hit with a massive roadblock.

Community members pushed back on the power plant plan, citing recent and growing concerns over air emissions, water usage, and noise. And while the project team had worked to mitigate each of those issues to be well within regulatory requirements, it quickly became clear that the original strategy was no longer viable.

Was it our ideal outcome? No. But it’s the kind of curveball that it’s our job to anticipate and respond to.

And because of our initial planning efforts and analysis, we were ready to pivot.

Instead of trying to force the original solution, we were able to keep moving forward by revisiting all the available technologies we’d worked through earlier in the process.

In consultation with our client and alongside our EPC partner, we decided to redesign the onsite generation strategy around utility-scale fuel cells, which preserved the project’s objectives while addressing the full scope of the community’s concerns.

By this point, we’d cleared a bunch of big hurdles. We studied and introduced multiple prime power options, chose one, then quickly pivoted to a second. All the while, we secured interim power to keep the project moving forward while continuing to make sure our efforts fit our client’s business goals and were grounded in pragmatic and executable technical solutions.

Now the job shifted to working with the developer in presenting the project to its prospective tenants.