Energy, specifically cheap renewable energy, is the emphasis at Reno Technology Park (RTP), the massive development in Reno, Nevada, where Apple has chosen to build its next data center.

KC Mares, CTO and partner at Unique Infrastructure Group, the park’s developer, says RTP is offering companies access to eight electrical transmission lines with renewable generation on the opposite end of each. There are three 345kV lines and five 120kV ones. The lines fan out in different directions and connect to different energy sources. Two of the 345kV lines, for example, go through Idaho and connect to the Canadian electrical grid, where they draw hydroelectric power. Hydro is also generated at the end of the third one that reaches across the Oregon border.

Mares has been involved in infrastructure and power purchases for some of the high-tech industry’s biggest names, including Yahoo!, Google, Sun and Exodus Communications.

Enough land on the 2,200-acre property has been set aside for more than 20MW of solar, and there is more than 100MW of wind and geothermal generation capacity nearby. The park also has a heavy emphasis on natural-gas-fueled onsite generation. Two separate gas distribution lines run through the property, and RTP is in discussion to buy an adjacent 240MW natural-gas power plant. “We’ve had an offer to buy that plant for a while, and we’ve been working out the details of that acquisition,” Mares says.

Fiber connectivity is there with many major providers having backbone fiber running at the site or adjacent to it. Available carriers include AT&T, Level 3, Global Crossing, Verizon, Qwest, Cogent and others. Dark fiber options are also available. And here comes the kicker: RTP is offering tenants long-term power-purchase agreements at prices below US$0.04 per kWh. These agreements can be signed for as long as 30 years, Mares says.

“That is the total price. There are no distribution charges, there are no demand prices. There’s nowhere in the world you can do that.”So how does it get these rates and lock in such long-term contracts?

Reno is an “energy-surplus region,” Mares explains. The area has more electrical-generation capacity than it can use, therefore there is more competition for electricity buyers. Energy companies in Nevada also went overboard buying renewable-energy capacity when the state enacted stringent regulations on the proportion of renewable energy in a company’s generation-fuel mix.Ability to guarantee low energy rates also rides a lot on the low cost of natural gas. “The nice thing is you can lock in on long-term contracts for gas,” Mares says.

The recent boom in natural-gas mining using hydraulic fracturing (shale gas) has drastically reduced the fuel’s cost, and Mares does not foresee this cost going up much any time soon. He says the cost of natural gas has probably already hit bottom, but doesn’t believe it will skyrocket. “With the amount of gas reserves and resources that have been found over the past few decades, [there] will not be a shortage of natural gas for a very long time,” he says.