MDIPS
“ Spencer came to me three years ago now, almost, and saw that there was going to be a gap in where the utility had always been able to provide a load letter and supply the energy needed for the data centre,” Rhea says.“ We had originally come in thinking that we would be building data centres and going to be supplying a small bit of behind-themetre power to bridge the gap until the utility was able to meet us. But things have grown exponentially and changed in the industry since that inception.”
Addressing infrastructure complexity beyond power generation The scale of modern data centre development now affects municipal planning in ways few anticipated. A 500MW campus requires more than power generation – it demands water treatment facilities, road infrastructure capable of handling heavy lorries and comprehensive resource aggregation.“ A lot of these territories that can deploy 500MW of power, you’ re going to have to build your own water treatment plant,” Spencer says.“ And so now we’ re expanding the amount of municipal services that we have to contemplate and plan for from a framework perspective as developers.”
Spencer, who practised law before entering the data centre sector, points out that the development team must now consider services typically provided by municipalities. The company essentially plans to build infrastructure for what functions as a small city within a geographically constrained area.
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