MDIPS
Planning five projects across Utah, Wyoming and Idaho The company does not view other developers as competition in a market that requires widespread capacity addition. Rhea says E3 will be successful if it can set an example which sets a precedent for the industry.
“ There is so much to go around. We don’ t see that there’ s heavy competition and view it adversarially,” Rhea says.“ We hope that what we do is duplicated across the United States. We’ re not going to build dozens of these MDIPs for the foreseeable future. But we do want to get them right to inspire industry innovation.”
The company avoids calling these developments microgrids because the scale ranges from 2-4GW. As these parks develop in rural communities and interconnect with the grid, they support public utilities across the US.
Spencer characterises the data centre industry’ s challenges around community engagement and publicprivate partnership as advocacy gaps rather than marketing problems. The industry remains young compared to traditional industrial verticals such as energy.
“ The data centre industry, it’ s like a baby elephant. Elephants are huge, lots of weight, very significant. But the data centre industry is a baby in comparison to traditional industrial verticals, like energy,” Spencer says.
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