TerraVolt buys 1,077 acres in Idaho for 240 MW gas campus

TerraVolt has acquired 1,077 acres in Cassia County, Idaho, where it plans a master-planned data center campus with an initial 240 MW of on-site gas generation, the company said.

TerraVolt has signed for 55,000 MMBtu per day of firm gas from the Williams Northwest pipeline, Data Center Dynamics first reported. The parcel is already zoned for multiple uses. Terms of the land purchase were not disclosed.

The company intends to sell permitted, "shovel-ready" sites to data center operators and to supply power, fiber, potable and fire-protection water, wastewater treatment and other site services under a long-term agreement with each buyer. For an investor underwriting the platform, the cash flow to model is that services agreement, not the one-time land sale.

Joel Stone, chairman and CEO of TerraVolt Holdings, said option agreements secure site control, allowing the team to advance land use plans, environmental due diligence, power plant, electrical distribution and water treatment system designs, and county and state permitting. Stone said pairing a large parcel with firm gas supply and pipeline access addresses the multi-year wait for large-load grid interconnections.

The company says the off-grid design avoids interconnection delays and shortens time to power, and that it shields local residential and commercial ratepayers from grid strain or rate increases. TerraVolt plans to use low-water cooling such as closed-loop systems for any data center built on the property.

CalEthos launched TerraVolt in July of last year as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform selling turnkey sites to hyperscalers, colocation providers and data center developers. The business was originally positioned as a geothermal producer and has since pivoted to natural gas. CalEthos is based in Tustin, California.