Virginia's Culpeper County has approved another massive data center proposal.
Cielo Digital Infrastructure is set to develop a 1.4 million sq ft (130,065 sqm) data center on a 121-acre parcel along Nalles Mill Road following the County Board of Supervisors vote to approve the project, reports the Star Exponent.
The County also voted in favor of rezoning the land from Rural Area to Light Industrial.
The data center will be housed on pastureland which is part of the county's McDevitt Drive Technology Zone.
Board documents suggests that the data center will spread across three buildings: two 96MW data centers and one 48MW data center.
The development will also have an on-site REC substation and large backup generators. There will also be onsite water tanks for fire suppression.
Cielo is owned by Texas-based Arroyo Investors and according to its LinkedIn page was founded in 2023. Little information about its data center experience is available.
The Board of Supervisors voted 5-2 in favor. Among those against the project is Jefferson District Supervisor Brad Rosenberger, due to concerns that Cielo did not state how big the fuel tanks would need to be for the generators.
Other Supervisors noted that the county has attempted to reign in data center developments by shrinking its technology zones. Stevensburg District Supervisor Susan Gugino said: "It's good we have limited it — one and done. We know the imprint. Never in my life did I think we would do it so quickly, but they are in the right place."
Sarah Parmelee from the Piedmont Environmental Council argued that the more than six million sq ft (557,420 sqm) of data center space approved by Culpeper County this year alone will need more power than is generated at the Lake Anna nuclear station, and hundreds of miles of new transmission lines, and massive solar projects will be needed. She also noted that there could easily be a "decade wait" before power is ready to serve the sites.
In addition to approving the data center development, Culpeper County has also approved a $25,000 budget to "market and brand" the Culpeper Technology Zone.
"Now that we’ve attracted these data centers, the best thing is for them to acclimate, for them to build, and for the equipment to come into the county,” said Culpeper County economic development director Bryan Rothamel. “It’s great that they’ve committed to Culpeper, now we need to be on the same side encouraging activation — make this technology zone not only our incentive but also a place, something we can market and talk about.”
Other data center developments in Culpeper County include a DataBank facility expected to comprise three two-story buildings spanning 1.4 million sq ft (130,065 sqm), and a nine-building campus from Peterson Companies. Culpeper County also approved four million sq ft (371,610 sqm) of rezoning requests around McDevitt Drive at the request of TPC Culpeper LC and TPC Freedom I LC in May 2023.
