- The U.S. Department of Energy plans to share resources with data center developers about how they can repurpose old coal sites for new campuses
- Energy DELTA Lab is already working on one such project in Virginia
- Old coal sites come with a range of unique challenges but also have access to key resources - like power, water and workers - that data centers need.
It seems the race to lead on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure could end up taking U.S. companies back to the coal mines.
C-suite executives from Alphabet, AWS, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia and OpenAI met with government officials in Washington D.C. last week to brainstorm ways to bolster domestic AI infrastructure. Buried in the White House summary of the meeting was one interesting tidbit: among other things, the group apparently discussed the possibility of repurposing old coal sites to house data center campuses.
This might sound a little far-fetched, but it’s already being done by Energy DELTA Lab at Data Center Ridge in Virginia and is the subject of a U.S. Department of Energy campaign. That said, it’s not easy.
Will Clear, managing partner of Virginia Energy Strategies and part of Energy DELTA Lab’s leadership team, told Fierce that coal plant sites come with a number of challenges. First, he noted land rights are often separated such that one person may own the land on the surface but another may own rights to the minerals, coal or gas below ground. Access to the surface is needed to harvest those underground resources, which can complicate the process for siting structures on the surface.
Then, he said, there’s the question of whether the land is under permit for coal activities and whether that permit requires the land to be restored to its original contours once mining and processing (which tends to flatten any hills) has ceased. If such a clause exists, then regulators have to greenlight leaving the land flat for development, he said.
Retention ponds, underground mine structures and land stability are also concerns for developers, with the latter two issues of particular importance for data center operators. After all, if you’re putting something very heavy on the surface, you want to make sure the land won’t move and won’t cave in. Clear said while regulations can vary by locality, in Virginia at least there tends to be a solid minimum of 200 feet of sandstone or limestone between the surface and any remaining underground tunnels.
“That’ll hold,” he said.
Pretty perfect
Challenges aside, Clear and fellow Energy Delta Lab exec Will Payne said coal plant sites tend to have a few key things data center facilities need: access to power lines, water and a local workforce. And it’s not just Clear and Payne that have noted this. The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Lab, which is spearheading the government’s “coal-to-X” redevelopment campaign, said the same in a fact sheet on its website.
“A retired coal site could even be redeveloped to combine a data center with new clean energy on the same site,” PNNL’s guide added.
The ability to generate power – be it solar, wind, hydrogen, nuclear or other – onsite is particularly appealing given the issues data centers are facing accessing power in other areas. In addition to sourcing enough power, data centers are finding it hard to move that power to where they need it. Both of those problems can be solved by an old coal site which boasts enough room to hold both the data center and its power generation facilities.
“Power is the significant gorilla in the room, and what ultimately has got to happen is data centers are going to have to take matters into their own hands and produce their own power,” Clear said. “Transmitting it anywhere is a problem. Generating anywhere is a problem, unless you can find a place to do it all together, which is what we offer.”
“The size of the property allows for line-of-site for generation,” he added of the 65,000 data center ridge site. “Not a whole lot of places can say that.”
Payne also stressed the importance of access to the “highly skilled” workforce residing in old coal towns. It’s a win-win for an industry that is looking to bridge a workforce shortage and towns that would welcome economic development efforts.
On top of all that, coal sites also have access to tax benefits and grants on the local and federal levels, Payne and Clear said.
Future targets
It’s worth noting that in attendance at the White House meeting was AES, a global energy company that is working to shut down all of its coal plants across the U.S. by 2027 as it shifts toward renewable energy. It has facilities in Indiana, Maryland, Hawaii and Puerto Rico that it either has already shuttered or plans to decommission.
The company is just one of several in the U.S. retiring its old coal plants, which is why the government is pushing its “coal-to-X” redevelopment plan. The Department of Energy has developed a resource guide – complete with a handy dandy mapping tool – that identifies areas where coal facilities are closing or have already.
And given the government is planning to push those sites to power and space hungry data center operators as part of a bid to lead in AI infrastructure, we could see more facilities on old coal sites in the years ahead.
For those interested but wary of the challenges, Payne said the best thing to do is visit the site in question.
“You have to come here to understand what we’re selling. We can put together a pitch deck and what will be selected is what’s easier with less risk,” he concluded. “You’ve got to take the time to come visit. Those who do, they’re doing the projects.”