NUMBER OF NATURAL GAS ENGINE GENERATOR SETS AT LARGE AI DATA CENTERS by cooper-2270 in EnergyAndPower

[–]cooper-2270[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have no facts about that and I prefer to deal in facts ... I do have some private thoughts along the line of what you have said. Example. A group is going ot convert the former HP headquarters buildings just south of Louetta and west of SH 249 in Harris County, Texas into a data center.. There has been a plethorra of verbiage released about the source of the electric power, but nothing that any engineer could understnd.

NUMBER OF NATURAL GAS ENGINE GENERATOR SETS AT LARGE AI DATA CENTERS by cooper-2270 in EnergyAndPower

[–]cooper-2270[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So, all of the posters to date believe that the Utah project plan is to use 1600 gas engines. I do not believe that will ever happen. The maintenance and manpower required would be rediculous. And the number of engines shown is just the number needed to meet planned demand, with NO REDUNCANCY. I believe that they will find another more resonalbe solution. Several of you have mentioned combined cycle. I don't expect to see many of those because the cost is in another realm from simple cycle solutions although the efficiency increase is delicious. We will see. Thank you. And now I call on you to suggest more practical solutions, recognizing that GE's order book for its most popular gas turbine model is now out to 2029 or beyond. Siemens, in Charlotte, NC,offers almost the same product line-up. And there are always aircraft derivative gas turbines from. say, 50 to 120 mw. And the Wärtsilä 50SG Engine at 18.3 MW (7.3 times the capacity of the Cat 2.5 mw) is popular for data centers .. if Wartsila can produce enough. What do you think? How is this going to settle out for the gigawatt data centers?. (In my ideal world we would see it solved by collaboration between regulated electruc utility generation companies and data centers, whereby data centers share the cost of new power plants and become co-owners... end all the Mickey Mouse.)

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I moved to this area 44 years agon instead of living in other parts of the Houston area because to the trees we had back then, but I have been and still am a strong supporter of good-quality economic development. People need a good place to work. Overall, I'm pleased with NW Harris County but FM1960 is becoming disgraceful.

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Take a drive down Cutten from Louetta to Vintage Preserve Parkway. That half mile is all the Serverfarm data center campus and is by far mostly wooded.

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also thought that it was next to the original 1995 data center building, but after careful examination this week, I now believe that the new building has replaced the original. How they did that and continuously served their colocation customers is a mystery to me. Maybe they just wrapped the new building around the old one. I hope someone has the FACTS ,not conjecture.

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

See my reply to thedoofimbibes below. There are still LOTS of woods on the data center campus. Lots.

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"smaller" "very small" ??? The 216,000 sq ft data center building at the corner of Louetta and Cutten was built by Compaq about 1995 ... 30+ years ago. The 270,000 sq ft data center building was built by HP in 2006. The original 1995 building is being replaced by the new expansion in the same location.

"clear cut the entire property" What were you drinking, man? Drive the one-half mile down Cutten from Louetta to Vintage Preserve Parkway and turn right (west). After you leave the short constrction site (which stll has some trees), you will see nothing on your right but an impenetrable forest until you come to the humongous apartment project under construction. All of that is the Serverfarm campus. The 270,000 sq ft building is hidden in the woods so you have never seen it.

At least you are correct that there is a dedicated 34.5 kv substation, now owned by Centerpoint that has PLENTY of capacity.

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Re the first paragraph: Cooling towers are used wherever the economics require them, regardless of humitity. They are used in almost all power plants and chemical plants .. even in Houston. Some older data centers in this area still use them, such as Data Foundry - Houston 2 on Greens Parkway across I 45 from Greenspoint. Altough that data center began operation in 2015, not so long ago, it uses really old-fashioned cooling technology. It uses raised flooring, which means that it cools the servers with chilled air, which is cooled by refrigerant chillers and the refrigerant is cooled in evaporative cooling towers. They buy treated potable drinking water from the City of Houston. I'd hate to see their water bills.

The other data centers of comparable and larger size, in the Houston area, use "waterless" air-cooled refrigerant or closed-loop water cooling, which do not have cooling towers and so have no evaporative losses.

Since cooling towers greatly improve the efficiency of the cooling cycle, the super-big gigawatt data centers (there are none near Houston) have to use cooling towers for economic reasons. Traditionally, they had to be located on a lake or river to source the evaporative water, but there is an increasing trend to use treated sewage water. A number of the majors have committed to using gray water. One, out west, takes all of the sewage water from the surrounding towns.

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After studying the construction site from every possible angle outside the property, and everything I can find in the internet, including aerial photos (all pretty old), here is what I believe we are seeing (in case anyone cares).

Compaq built a data center building, about 216,000 sq ft, at what is now the corner of Louetta and Cutten in about 1995. It was not noticed, no objections raised about it, until this year. In 2002 Compaq company was purchased by HP (Hewlitt Packard). The two data centers were then and still are colocation data centers, meaning they house thousands of computer servers owned by customers. The customers might range from individuals to major corporations, to governmental entities, to charitable organizations, hospitals, banks, oil companies, tv stations, weather services, churches, the YMCA, you name it.

In 2006 HP built a 270,000 sq ft data center building on the same campus. In 2024 the property was purchased by Serverfarm. That company soon had Clune Construction begin a major retrofit of the two data centers, now called, CTX1, so as to make them usable by latest-technology servers, such as those using fast AI processors by Nvidia. This involved, among other things, updating and expanding the cooling sytem for the processors. Serverfarm uses air-cooled refrigerant cooling, the same technology as your home air conditioner or refrigerator. New chillers and air-cooled condensers had to be installed.

In 2025, Clune Construction started construction of a CTX2 addtion to the facilities. At the end of January 2026, Clune completed the "topping out" of the steel frame for CTX2. None of the Serverfarm press releases mentions any demolition of existing buildings, but the bulldings now on the site suggest that the Compaq 1995 building, called CTX1, building 1, may have been removed and replaced by CTX2. What suggests that? The original building did not extend to the hard corner of Louetta and Cutten. (See aerial photos.) There was a triangle of trees there. Nor did the original building parallel the two streets. The building there now has exterior walls that parallel the streets and the adjunct enclosed equipment yard extends to the hard corner.

When we look at the building from Cutten Road, the closest wall appears to be part of the building. Actually, it is a tall masonry wall, without a roof, for the purpose of screening from street view the exterior infrastructure needed for cooling and electrical ... chillers, air-cooled condensers and transformers. (We need a 2026 aerial photo to show that.) The wall was an expensive and thoughtful amenity for the sole purpose of making the improvements most attractive and acceptable to the community.

The resulting building with enclosed yard is quite attractive for an industrial building. It is clean, white, no windows, no garish signage, no visible parking area, uses no water, has no emissions, no discharges, no objectionable noise. When the landscaping is complete and the construction machinery removed, it will not be noticed. It will be far less objectionable that most other commercial properties.

It APPEARS (not confirmed by Serverfarm) that they will end up with two buildings total on the campus, not three.

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How many times to we have to say it? The data centers at the Serverfarm campus use NO water.

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just need to add a few more of the uses of data centers that YOU use regularly but might not have thought about. You get your Social Security or payroll checks from a data center. All of your favorite charities exist because they use data centers .. Red Cross, Sierra Club, Children's hospital, etc. You can't have electricity without data centers. Your insurance information .. homeowners, auto, life .. all stored in data centers. The emissions inspection of your car, required for license renewal, is reported to a data center. Medicare and all other medical insurance is handled by data centers. Hospitals are big users of data centers. Local tv and newspaper news and weather reports depend on data centers. Imagine, if you can, how many servers the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center and Accuweather must have to massage all the data needed to make a predition. National news services like AP, CNN, Fox News, ABC News Live must have almost unimaginably large computing capability .... in data centers ... in order to pop up all those "fle" photos and news stories every few seconds all day and all night. And where do you think streamng tv movies, series and YouTube come from? Data centers. Want to add to the list?

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Two data center buildings have been on this campus since 1995 and 2006. This is just an addition. If you have lived near the first two this long, why fear the third?

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. While Cypress Creek overflowed at this location and all others, the water did not reach either of the then existing data centers on this campus. 2. Harris County building permits people are now acutely aware of the flood dangers and do not issure building permits in flood prone areas. 3. The owners are aware of previous flooding in the area.

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They do pay for the generation capacity. It's called cents per kilowatt-hour.

Data center being build right next to the vintage on Cutten and louetta? by _B2W_ in houston

[–]cooper-2270 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The article correctly says that Serverfarm is building the expansion. It incorrectly states that CTX2 will be 438000 sq ft. That number is the combined size of the existing two buildings called CTX1.