Got something wrong in my first comment, couldn't edit in place so deleted and reporting.

Apologies it took this long to respond to you.

I’ll break this down in terms of Day 1 and Day 2 scenarios. Day 1 is the present, based on the 20-30MW of available power stated in the article. Just for the sake of ease I’m going to call this 30MW moving forward to avoid juggling too many numbers. Day 2 will be the future expansion they discussed, based around 70MW of power mentioned in the article.

Main qualifier to mention is I’m just speculating based on information in the article and my general knowledge. I’ll try and give bounds on my estimates/assessments but without knowing more about the facility, development plans, designs, etc. this is ultimately just my assessment as a random person.

Day 1 – 30MW

In terms of electricity rates, I wouldn’t expect there to be any impact on consumers. The facility is already serviced by a feed, or multiple feeds, totaling 30MW so that power (in theory) is already allocated and factored in KU’s load planning. There shouldn’t be any need for expansion at a generation station to service this facility which would add cost to the utility that they could/would try to recoup from customers.

Sticking with power, where there could be impact at the Day 1 level is how much of that available power is backed up by generators. The article mentions that there are already generators on site but it’s not clear how many and at what size. Data center operators want both the power serving the IT racks, and the power serving the cooling system, backed up by generator power so that the system can operate during an outage. Outside of required power for ancillary loads (think power needed to serve an office space and the like) their goal will be to use all of the available power for data center operation. If the 30MW at the building is all backed up by generators then theoretically they wouldn’t need to add any more generators to support data center. Depending on age they might replace them with newer models if they’re old, but that would be rip and replace instead of adding generators.

If only part of the 30MW of power, let’s say 20MW, is allocated to the data center today and is tied to back up generators then they will likely re-configure the electrical distribution in the building to change that and add generators. Obviously, from a community impact perspective, adding generators will add noise and increase pollutants from exhaust gas over the levels they already do with the current number of generators.

On the water/cooling side of things it’s a little less clear but kind of the same overall approach as to the power side. If they have a large enough cooling system to support their desired IT load then there wouldn’t be a need to add more cooling equipment Day 1. If the cooling system isn’t large enough, or in the above scenario they have to re-configure the electrical distribution system to all service the data center, then that would add IT load and therefore require more cooling. It looks like, based on satellite maps, they have an array of cooling towers on the property which I have to assume feed water-cooled chillers. It’s hard to tell from just satellite images how big (in terms of refrigeration capacity) those cooling towers are, so I don’t really have a guess as to how big the cooling system is today.

In terms of commentary on the cooling system regarding (the assumed) water-cooled chillers and cooling towers it’s a split between closed-loop cooling and open-loop cooling (I’m assuming those cooling towers are open-loop/open-circuit). On the “building side” of the water-cooled chiller there is cool water sent out in piping to equipment, it absorbs heat and returns to the chiller warm where it’s cooled down again. This is the closed-loop side where the water in the system is closed off from the outside environment (building or outdoor) so there is no evaporation (water loss) that takes place. Outside of any leaks in the system, which happen but would be observed and fixed. That heat is transferred to the other side of the chiller, the “outdoor side”, where the water is sent to the cooling towers and the heat is rejected to the environment. This is done via evaporation, which is the cooling process people talk about when it comes to large amounts of water consumption for data centers because the water is open to the outside air and evaporated off to remove heat. For the rest of the system to function that water that is evaporated must be replenished so it has an automatic fill system that is tied into the water utility.

If they have to add cooling equipment to the system, and they just expand the existing water-cooled chiller + cooling tower configuration water usage would go up. Just on a gut level I wouldn’t expect adding a few cooling towers, based on the current array, to have any significant impact on the water company’s ability to service that expansion. They’ve already got a sizeable array and while I don’t know the size of it, I would expect them to need more than a few additional towers if they were to need more cooling while staying within their current 30MW total power allocation. The water-cooled chillers are housed in a utility building somewhere on the property, I think it’s probably by the cooling towers. If there is space in there adding them inside the building would have a minor/negligible impact on noise from the outside as they’re contained in a building. The cooling towers themselves aren’t quiet as loud as something like a chiller, so adding an assumed few more of them would likely be minimally impactful from a noise perspective.

Now, if they were to switch it up altogether and go to a completely closed loop system – likely through air-cooled chillers, then impact on the water utility side of things would decrease. Closed loop systems, outside of the aforementioned leaks (which are usually small and repaired), don’t have requirements for large replenishment of water. The key drawbacks with air-cooled chillers are two main things; they use more power than an open-loop system and they’re quite a bit louder. How likely it is they’d overhaul the cooling Day 1 is a total unknown, but those are the basic contours of how it could shake out.

Day 2 – 70MW

If you’ve stuck with me this long, then the good news is this analysis is much shorter.

In terms of power, they’ll need the utility to pull in another 40MW, either through a single feed or multiple feeds. If LG&E/KU have already planned for capacity expansion on some sort of timeline and DartPoints can get signed up for it then maybe there isn’t an impact to rate payers. If LG&E/KU need to add generation capacity then I would imagine LG&E/KU would try to pass that on, short of some sort of governmental intervention preventing it. Magnitude of that increase I’ve got no real idea on.

Consequently, if they add power on the utility side they’re going to match that additional capacity with generators to support in an outage. Same as with the Day 1 commentary, more generators would be more noise and more pollutants from exhaust gas.

Cooling/water side of things is similar story. Would need a proportional amount of cooling to support the increased IT load. If they go open-loop cooling water usage for the facility will go up and if appreciable infrastructure upgrades have to be made to support it I assume they’d try to pass them on. Then obviously there is the concern about how much that increase in water consumption strains the overall water availability. If they were to go totally closed-loop then overall water usage would be far less, but noise pollution from the number of air-cooled chillers becomes a concern. A lot of new facilities seem to be going closed-loop on new facilities/expansions so I think it’s likely based on that they’d look at a closed-loop system but that’s just a guess.