New Era Energy & Digital has reported that its joint venture, Texas Critical Data Centers (TCDC) with Sharon AI, has signed a non-binding term sheet with Thunderhead Energy Solutions to build a 250 MW behind-the-meter power island to support a planned hyperscale artificial intelligence (AI) data center campus in Ector County, Texas.
According to New Era Energy & Digital, Thunderhead Energy Solutions is set to finance, construct, and operate approximately 250 MW of gas-fired generation capacity for the project. The deployment will use a hybrid mix of reciprocating engines and turbines. Construction is expected to begin within 2024, and the full buildout is targeted within the following 18 months. The power island is designed as the primary energy source for the TCDC campus, which will focus on high-performance and AI-optimized workloads.
The 250 MW power infrastructure targets hyperscale compute environments and aims to serve AI clients, hyperscale operators, and compute partners, as described by New Era Energy & Digital. The site will feature SB6-compliant power delivery as stated in the company announcement, and the deployment in the Permian Basin is intended to use available regional natural gas resources.
E. Will Gray II, CEO of New Era Energy & Digital, stated: “The agreement with Thunderhead is one more major milestone in our buildout and reinforces our vision of delivering energy-resilient, AI-native infrastructure. It also ensures TCDC will provide robust, SB6-compliant power to support the next wave of AI growth in West Texas.”
Wolf Schubert, CEO of Sharon AI, said: “We are pleased to announce the agreement with Thunderhead for a fully outsourced power island at the site, which continues to build on the multilateral power strategy being deployed to power the TCDC campus,”
Brennan Zaunbrecher, Founder and Principal of Thunderhead Energy Solutions, stated: “We are excited to partner with Texas Critical Data Centers on this groundbreaking 250MW AI data center project in the Permian Basin. This partnership allows us to leverage the region’s abundant natural gas resources to deliver reliable, scalable energy solutions supporting growing digital infrastructure demand through a world-class asset. We look forward to working closely with TCDC and the customer to bring this innovative project to fruition, and to establishing a new standard for AI infrastructure development optimized from resource to compute.”
Source: New Era Energy & Digital
