The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced plans to help ensure America leads the world in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and lower energy costs by co-locating data centers and new energy infrastructure on DOE lands. DOE has released a Request for Information (RFI) to inform possible use of DOE land for AI infrastructure development to support growing demand for data centers. DOE has identified 16 potential sites uniquely positioned for rapid data center construction, including in-place energy infrastructure with the ability to fast-track permitting for new energy generation such as nuclear.
In accordance with President Trump‘s Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence and Unleashing American Energy Executive Orders, DOE is exploring opportunities to accelerate AI and energy infrastructure development across the country, prioritizing public-private partnerships to advance the use of innovative technologies and strategies.
“The global race for AI dominance is the next Manhattan project, and with President Trump’s leadership and the innovation of our National Labs, the United States can and will win,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said. “With today’s action, the Department of Energy is taking important steps to leverage our domestic resources to power the AI revolution, while continuing to deliver affordable, reliable and secure energy to the American people.”
The Department is seeking input from data center developers, energy developers and the broader public to further advance this partnership. The information collected will be used to inform development, encourage private-public partnerships and enable the construction of AI infrastructure at select DOE sites with a target of commencing operation by the end of 2027.
The sites also offer the industry a chance to partner with DOE’s world-class research facilities co-located on the sites, furthering advancements in both the power systems design needed to run the centers and developing next-generation data center hardware. Publicly available information about each site, including location, available acreage, and other characteristics is provided in appendices to the RFI.
Additionally, the RFI aims to gather information on potential development approaches, technology solutions, operational models, and economic considerations associated with establishing AI infrastructure.
News item from the Dept. of Energy
” DOE has identified 16 potential sites uniquely positioned for rapid data center construction, including in-place energy infrastructure with the ability to fast-track permitting for new energy generation such as nuclear.”
The concept is taking large energy users like commercial business parks, Industrial complexes and “data centers” put SMR/MSR micro reactors on site to power the facility and use so called “thin wires” to the Utility grid as a “light back up” and surge demand adder to the operation. This will require more land for huge 1-50 GWh energy storage facilities to allow variable seasonal operations with reliability as the “climate changes” and storm systems interrupt the in situ grid in place now. Designing these sites around HV transmission lines would also allow the large energy storage facilities to be used as “regional” Energy storage and used as an asset to provide power to the “Data Center” while having the capability of servicing the grid FCAS grid services sector as an ancillary source of income for the system. Think “Big Battery” installed across the Hornsdale Power Reserve wind farm in Australia in 2017. In that instance it was a “Mega-battery”, in this instance one is talking about a Giga-battery ESS. Using something like the Form Energy iron/air ESS it would be something like 416 acres for 1GWh of energy storage capability, so a 50GWh facility would take up about 33 square miles for Energy storage alone, something like 6 by 6 miles. Large tracts of land will be necessary and close proximity to existing HV transmission lines to allow such operations fot function properly as a day ahead EaaS grid system.