| ProjectLok. Issue No. 01 · September 1, 2026 · West Edition | | The Brief The frontier didn't close. It scattered. The West built the data center industry. Fifteen years ago Google, Amazon, and Microsoft chased cheap hydro to the Columbia River and cheap land to the desert, and the map filled in. Now it's full — Silicon Valley is out of power, the hydro corridor is capped, and the coast fights every new campus. So the growth went looking for the next electron, wherever it hides. A desert campus that islands itself on batteries and reclaimed water. A grid-flexing developer moving south to Salem. A utility that had to freeze data centers until it could build the wires. Small reactors at Hanford. A gas-fired campus on the Arctic tundra. Five projects, five different power sources, five different edges. In the mature West, the constraint isn't demand — it's finding power nobody's already spoken for. The frontier didn't close. It scattered. | | This Week's Projects | | Imperial Valley Data Center (IVDC) — Imperial County, CA Developer: Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing (IVCM) · Anchor: Google-linked · Sector: Data Center + Dedicated Power $10B(developer-stated) · 330 MW / 950K sq ft / 74 acres · Imperial County | PERMITTING/LITIGATION · IID Targets Ops Jan 2027; City/County Transparency Friction |
This one's now fighting on two fronts. The original suit challenges Imperial County's data center moratorium — extended into 2027 — as an unlawful 'manufactured emergency.' But a second, separate lawsuit just as notable: after publicly pledging for months that its 330MW campus would rely on recycled wastewater rather than Colorado River water, the developer reversed course and is now suing the Imperial Irrigation District for roughly 260 million gallons a year of Colorado River water — after IID rejected the request. For contractors, this is a project that keeps generating headlines but hasn't cleared a single real approval gate; the public reversal on water sourcing is a credibility flag worth watching before committing resources. | | | Verrus "Oakline at Mill Creek" — Salem, OR Developer: Verrus (Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners) · Sector: Data Center $5.1B · 3 buildings + substation / 75 acres; MW TBD · Marion County | Proposed · Under Salem Review; Emerged From a 16-Month NDA |
The new model, in a new market. Verrus — an Alphabet spin-out launched by Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners in 2024 — builds grid-reactive data centers that flex their energy use depending on the needs of the grid. Its Salem campus, valued at $5.1 billion, would be the largest private investment in the city's history — three buildings and a substation on 75 acres, 45 miles south of the built-out Amazon/Google corridor. The design leans on lithium-iron-phosphate battery backup and closed-loop cooling. The story that broke it open: the project sat under a 16-month confidentiality agreement with the city, and that secrecy became its own controversy when it surfaced in July. Still under review — but a signal that Oregon's next wave is moving south with a different playbook. | | | Quincy Transmission Expansion (QTEP) — Quincy, WA Developer: Grant County PUD · Sector: Transmission Infrastructure $260M · 6 × 230kV segments + new switchyard + substation expansions · Grant County | Under Construction · Substation May 2026; Transmission Mid-2028; Service 2029 |
The pick-and-shovel play that unlocks the entire central-Washington cluster. Grant County PUD is spending $260 million on six new transmission segments — including a 32-mile 230kV line from the Wanapum switchyard — plus a new switchyard and substation expansions that raise Quincy's load limit from 372 to 750 megawatts. Here's why it's the gate: the PUD took the unprecedented step of capping new data center load in Quincy until the transmission is built — with 79 industrial applications in the queue needing 2,846 MW, nearly three times the utility's current peak. That's biddable transmission, switchyard, and substation scope now, upstream of every campus waiting on power. Watch the land fight — condemnation proceedings on the Wanapum line have residents calling it a land grab. | | | Cascade Advanced Energy Facility (X-energy SMRs) — Richland, WA Developer: Energy Northwest + X-energy (Amazon-funded) · GC: Cascade Nuclear Partners (Kiewit / Black & Veatch / Aecon) · Sector: Power Generation (SMR) 320 MW (4 reactors), expandable to 960 MW (12) · Benton County | Proposed · Construction Targeted ~2030, Ops 2030s |
The frontier of the frontier: nuclear built to feed AI. Energy Northwest — which owns the Pacific Northwest's only commercial reactor — is developing an initial 320 MW SMR complex next to its Columbia Generating Station near Richland, the first major project in Amazon's broader 5 GW nuclear partnership with X-energy. Four Xe-100 reactors in phase one, expandable to twelve for 960 MW. The build team is set: Cascade Nuclear Partners, a Kiewit / Black & Veatch / Aecon joint venture, under a progressive design-build. Construction isn't expected until the end of the decade, with operations in the 2030s — so it's a track-and-position card. But for contractors building an advanced-nuclear resume, getting known to that JV now is the play. This is where data center power is going. | | | Stak Energy North Slope — Deadhorse area, AK Developer: Stak Energy · Sector: Data Center + Dedicated Power $500M · up to 3 GW self-powered / ~1 sq mi / 715 acres · Alaska North Slope, near Deadhorse (Dalton Highway corridor) · 1–3 GW planned capacity · North Slope Borough | PLANNING SCHEMATICS · Ops Late 2028; Clean Water Act Permit Pending |
This isn't a desert water fight — it's the opposite bet entirely. Stak is proposing a 715-acre, off-grid data campus on Alaska's North Slope, deliberately sited in the Arctic to eliminate water-intensive cooling altogether — no evaporative cooling, no competition for a scarce resource. The tradeoff is environmental review of a different kind: the site sits along Central Arctic Caribou Herd migration routes near existing TAPS/Dalton Highway infrastructure, and state review is actively assessing impacts on seasonal movement patterns. At 1–3 GW, this would be one of the largest behind-the-meter builds in the country if it clears review — an unusual entry point for contractors with Arctic, remote-site, or oil-and-gas-corridor experience rather than typical hyperscale campus trades. | | | These five represent a fraction of what's active in the West right now. If you're tracking a specific project or market and want a full intelligence report — hit reply. We read everything. | | Signal Watch Out West, the gate isn't a permit or a tariff — it's the utility saying it can't serve you. Grant County PUD did exactly that, placing load limits on data centers in Quincy to buy time for transmission — with 79 applications in its queue needing 2,846 MW, nearly three times the utility's current peak. It's the sharpest version of a regional pattern: the West's cheap-power advantage is spent, and utilities are rationing what's left. Oregon's POWER Act, signed in August 2025, forces large energy users into a dedicated rate class with ten-year power contracts and the cost of any new transmission they trigger. California's grid is fully subscribed. The signal for contractors: in the mature West, a project's real start date is set by the utility's ability to power it, not the developer's ability to fund it. Track the interconnection queue and the transmission build — that's the true schedule. | | | By the Numbers 7M Cubic yards of gravel needed just for the pad beneath Stak Energy's Arctic data center — nearly twice what ConocoPhillips's Willow oil project is authorized to use. This is what the frontier's edge costs now: before a single server is installed, you're moving a mountain of rock to lift a power plant five feet off the tundra. | | Coming Up Next issue works California's interior, where the state's power crunch is pushing AI into oil-and-geothermal country — the Salton Sea's "Lithium Valley" geothermal campuses and the behind-the-meter gas plays rising in Kern County. Plus the bridge nobody's watching: the temporary on-site gas turbines keeping central-Washington data centers running until the transmission catches up. And the Pentagon's quiet entry — AI data centers on Air Force land in Alaska. | | ProjectLok A Lok product · Building Intelligence · projectlok.com | |