CITY OF MESA'S DATA CENTER HUSTLE...Facebook's Water-Guzzling Data Center + Mesa high-voltage line

Data centers use electricity both to power their servers and also to cool them, since their operations generate lots of heat.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, “data centers are one of the most energy-intensive building types, consuming 10 to 50 times the energy per floor space of a typical commercial office building.”

TOP STORY 

Mesa high-voltage line for Facebook going to hearing        

By Scott Shumaker, Tribune Staff Writer Jun 21, 2022 

"The Arizona Corporation Commission is slated to hold a hearing in Mesa beginning June 27 on Salt River Project’s application to build a half-mile high-voltage transmission line to serve the Meta Data Center campus currently under construction at Elliot and Ellsworth Roads.

Arizona law requires power plants of 100 megawatts or more or transmission projects of 115,000 volts or more to be considered by ACC’s Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Committee.

The proposed 230kV spur line in Mesa, supported by poles up to 180 feet tall, would link the Meta data centers with the Southeast Power Link, a 7-mile high-voltage line between Queen Creek and Mesa that’s been approved but isn’t planned for completion until 2023.

As the primary beneficiary of the spur line, which would run between the 202 corridor and Ellsworth Road, Meta is funding the connection.

SRP’s request for the high-voltage line, taller than the 69 kV lines more commonly used to carry power short distances, underscores the large energy demands of data centers in general and the Meta campus in particular, which will eventually include five separate buildings totaling 2.5 million square feet.

Meta said earlier this year that its Mesa data centers will use about 450 MW per year, or enough to power all the homes in a medium-sized city. Meta has signed long-term purchasing agreements with SRP to buy solar power to meet its energy demands. SRP is currently constructing solar power plants in Pinal County to generate the contracted power. . .

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BLOGGER INSERT:

Mesa gets solar power from SRP

Posted Saturday, December 19, 2020 8:00 am

The city of Mesa is now one of 11 customers for Salt River Project receiving solar power from a new facility.The power is coming from a 100-megawatt plant from Saint Solar that is part of the utility’s increasing efforts to provide its customers with renewable energy.

“The city of Mesa is always looking for ways to be a little greener,” Mesa Mayor John Giles said in a release. “Thanks to SRP’s Sustainable Energy Offering, we’ll be able to tap into our generous Arizona sunshine and add more solar power to our overall energy mix.”

1 July 2021

Mesa isn’t the only city to receive power from the plant as Chandler and Phoenix also are part of the distribution. Businesses receiving power include Albertsons Cos. Inc., data centers Cyrus One and Digital Realty, and Mesa Public Schools. . .

NextEra Energy has already established itself in the area, as the company developed the Pinal Central Energy Centre within the same county back in 2017. The installation was eventually completed in May 2018. The Pinal Central Energy Centre, which features a 10MW lithium-ion battery storage system paired with a 20MW PV installation, will be connected to the Saint Solar project once the latter is completed, per Pinal Central. 

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The hearing on the proposed spur, dubbed Project Huckleberry by SRP, convenes at 1 p.m. at the Delta Hotels by Marriott Phoenix Mesa at 200 N. Centennial Way. The committee will take public comment in a special evening session on Monday, June 27, at 5:30 p.m. in person and virtually.

The hearing will continue June 28 at 9 a.m. and each following weekday through completion of the hearing. The hearing will be available to view online, by phone or in-person.

Zoom links for the hearing will be added to the project webpage srp.net/huckleberry. 

At the end of the hearing, the siting committee will decide whether to issue the project a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility. The committee’s decision is then subject to final approval from the Arizona Corporation Commission.

SRP Media Relations Representative Erica Roelfs said the company held an open house in May at the Eastmark Visitor and Community Center.

This followed two virtual meetings held via Zoom in March.

Roelf said one question asked by residents was why the larger 230kV lines were needed for this project rather than shorter, lower-voltage lines. According to SRP, the double-circuit 230 kV line to Meta would stand up to 180 feet tall, compared with 75 feet for 69 kV lines.

Roelf said the “sheer amount of power required for the project” necessitated higher voltage lines, and engineers also told attendees that the larger lines are “innately more reliable,” since they are higher off the ground, further from the street, and less likely to be damaged. . ."

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RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG

2019 Bill Jabjiniak, Mesa’s economic development director, said the boom is no coincidence and represents eight years of planning to lure the high-tech companies and their high-paying jobs to Mesa.

“I would tell you this is a vision that started eight years ago,’’ Jabjiniak said, saying it was back then that he and his colleagues started assembling the infrastructure vital to data centers.

OK What about the water??

 

. . .that's the most precious commodity here in the desert and The East Valley - it's not mentioned, . .Elliott Avenue Technology Corridor" in far southeast Mesa, the location of agriculture, desert, and the former Williams Air Force Base. Now, with abundant concrete, gravel, and asphalt, it will expand the increasingly dangerous Phoenix urban heat island. The "Corridor" is entirely car dependent.

Data centers are lowest on the ladder of the tech economy: necessary, but bringing few jobs — much less high-end jobs — and several headaches. This is why they are usually found in rural areas desperate to replace their lost millwork, manufacturing, or railroad jobs. States and localities shell out huge incentives and disappointment follows. . .

Another problem with Data Center Alley: These massive server farms are water hogs. Elsewhere, they contribute to climate change because of their enormous appetite for electricity. Maybe Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station helps Mesa here. It's only built upwind of the nation's fifth most populous city.

And no evidence has emerged that data centers are a gateway to more advanced tech work. Metro Phoenix got nowhere in its bid for Amazon HQ2.

Read more closely and it's clear that Mesa's "technology corridor" is yet another Arizona real-estate hustle, dependent on cheap farmland and tilt-up buildings, plus a heapin' helping of tax breaks — in a state that ranks second from last in per-student funding. . .

 

INFORMATION FROM EARLIER POSTS ON THIS BLOG

16 August 2021

Facebook Data Center ( Formerly Known as "Project Huckleberry" ) = A LARGE WATER CONSUMER

Let's backtrack to one item on the Mesa City Council agenda 17 May 2021.

 Now we know what that mystery of "a data center" turns out to be as well as the agreement to authorize the development to be a MLM customer ( LARGE WATER CONSUMER )

File #:

21-0552

Type:

Resolution

Status:

Agenda Ready

In control:

City Council

On agenda:

5/17/2021

Title:

Approving and authorizing the City Manager to enter into a Development Agreement and Sustainable Water Service Agreement with Redale LLC, for the development of approximately 396 acres of property generally located at the southeast corner of Elliot and Ellsworth Roads.  The Agreements facilitate the phased development of a large data center that will generate economic benefits to the City of Mesa and authorize the development to be a MLM Customer (large water customer) under Title 8, Chapter 10 of the Mesa City Code. (District 6)

Attachments:

1. Council Report, 2. Resolution, 3. Development Agreement, 4. Sustainable Service Agreement

and

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INSERT: From the Non-Profit City of Mesa Newsroom Mesa Now > More High-Voltage Hype on Mesa's Data Center Hustle

So tell me how the City's "new communication strategy" is going when there's no proof that all the salaried media specialists and all the public information officers produce the final product for publication. . . from what we can see they might appear incapacitated, otherwise-engaged, or either not quite ready-willing-or-able to write their own new press releases for public consumption > With the new data center, Facebook is prioritizing sustainable, clean energy as well as local water conservation. Facebook's investment will support 450 megawatts of new, renewable energy projects at three sites in Arizona, ensuring energy for the facility is 100% renewable. In addition, Facebook announced plans to restore over 200 million gallons of water per year in the Colorado River and Salt River basins to restore more water than the data center will consume. The Mesa Data Center will use at least 60% less water than the average data center. . ." HOW > USING 'WATER OFFSETS' + 'WATER RESTORATION CERTIFICATES'

RELATED CONTENT

Re: Bonneville Environmental Foundation BEF

In August 2019, the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association built a 16-foot pyramid of jugs in its main entrance in Phoenix. The goal was to show residents of this desert region how much water they each use a day—120 gallons—and to encourage conservation. 

“We must continue to do our part every day,” executive director Warren Tenney wrote in a blog post. “Some of us are still high-end water users who could look for more ways to use water a bit more wisely.”

A few weeks earlier in nearby Mesa, Google proposed a plan for a giant data center among the cacti and tumbleweeds. The town is a founding member of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association, but water conservation took a back seat in  it struck with the largest U.S. internet company.

Google is guaranteed 1 million gallons a day to cool the data center, and up to 4 million gallons a day if it hits project milestones. If that was a pyramid of water jugs, it would tower thousands of feet into Arizona’s cloudless sky.

 

 

“Data centers are expanding, they’re going everywhere. They need to be built in a way that ensures they are not taking critical resources away from water-scarce communities,” said Gary Cook, global climate campaigns director at Stand.earth, an environmental advocacy group.. .

“The race for data centers to keep up with it all is pretty frantic,” said Kevin Kent, chief executive officer of consulting firm Critical Facilities Efficiency Solutions. “They can’t always make the most environmentally best choices.”

 

10 May 2021

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From KJZZ report today

Mesa Asks Citizens To Conserve Electricity Amid Concerns Over Energy Supply

By Jimmy Jenkins

Published: Wednesday, June 30, 2021 - 6:21pm

Mesa is urging residents to conserve electricity as prices soar and energy reserves are diminishing. 

The city of Mesa operates its own electric utility that serves about 18,000 residential, commercial and light industrial customers in the downtown area.

Frank McRae is the city’s director of the Energy Resources Department. He said the power supply markets are tightening to a point they had projected wouldn’t happen until 2023.

"There’s typically an amount of supply that exceeds demand amongst the utilities and the power providers in the western regional markets," he said. "That margin, or what we call reserve margin, has diminished significantly over the last several years." So as a result, energy prices have spiked.

Mesa is asking customers to conserve energy consumption from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., because energy costs for the city for that time period have increased tenfold over the past year.

 

>

 

 

24 September 2018

09 November 2018

Most people probably didn't notice it, but there's A VERY BIG WHOPPER for power plans and more real estate development here in what's called The Southeast Valley.
Power in the expansion of above-the-ground electric energy lines and powers behind-the-scenes
(the reference is to "other stakeholders" that go un-named).

Make no  mistake about it: these are long-range plans. Last week the Mesa City approved an agreement with City Manager Chris Brady to purchase electric energy from WAPA through the year 2030. WAPA is the Western Area Power Alliance. It just happened to coincide with SRP's press announcement that was published by The Queen Creek Independent on November 8th.
They're all "Linked-Up" in the expansion of The New Zion and Saint's Holdings.

Read what you want into that . . . or you might want to take the heat off the subject by calling it Suburban Sprawl or a network of scattered and connected Boomburgs or fast-growing technology corridors/sectors with major corporations who have been the catalyst for housing, shopping and entertainment that have now become recognizable places-on-the-aerial maps. NOTICE where the lines on the map are going.
(6.5 miles of the new WAPA power lines run through Mesa)

 

 

 

ITY OF MESA STARTS TO REALIZE 1,200-YEAR OLD WATER DROUGHT IS SERIOUS

Intro: The signs were there all these many years - all these many years of 'Build it and They will come' in rampant unchecked and unrestrained relentless unsustainable Suburban Sprawl that has devoured the entire East Valley.

There are, however, no signs that the Mesa City Council or the city government has any plans to stop-and-think about any of the consequences when they have fast-tracked approvals for more thousands of new homes, water-guzzling data centers and industrial parks.

Paying lip-service to the crisis is one thing - taking responsible action is another

1

Mesa Statement Following Arizona Department of Water Resources and Central Arizona Project Joint Colorado River Shortage Briefing

May 6, 2022 at 11:48 am
Due to historic drought, climate change and over-allocation, conditions on the Colorado River are worsening. While deeper shortages may come quicker than anticipated, Mesa recognizes the situation is serious and continues to strategically plan for a...