Indiana is considering the state’s first off-grid power source to provide electricity temporarily to a Meta data center being built in Lebanon.
Texas-based Life Cycle Power submitted an air emissions permit to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in February detailing plans to supply 134 megawatts of power via gas-fired generators to the data facility. The first buildings are expected to be operational by 2027, and generators would need to be in place in advance of that.
Life Cycle Power’s facilities are intended to provide bridge power solely to the data center until a permanent connection to the local utility provider is made.
Geoff Bland, senior vice president with LCP, said the gas generators will be operational through the end of 2027 after which they will be demobilized and moved offsite.
“They’re not going to be there indefinitely,” Bland said.
LCP’s permit application requests placing 65 generators on site, but Bland told IndyStar there will likely only be 32 generators because the data center is closer than anticipated to hooking up to the regional power grid.
The air permits caught the attention of consumer watchdog group Citizens Action Coalition, which has called for a statewide moratorium on AI data centers until more protective state polices are in place. Currently 19 counties in the state have enacted mostly temporary moratoriums on approving new facilities.
The permits as written concern CAC’s Ben Inskeep, who said he’s worried about the pollution that could occur at the site.
“Natural gas power plants emit a lot of different air pollutants … that generate ground-level ozone or smog, and that of course, is very detrimental to public health, particularly folks with respiratory illnesses, things like asthma,” Inskeep said.
Bland acknowledged the generators emit pollutants but said the exhaust technology on each unit greatly diminishes what is emitted. The technology works much like a car’s catalytic converter, he said, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.
Using natural gas rather than diesel further decreases harmful emissions, Bland said.
Still, Inskeep said there is at least one good indication that people in the surrounding area could see poorer air quality and increased climate pollution once the generators start running.
“If it wasn’t a concern, they wouldn’t need to get a permit,” Inskeep said.
Meta, which contracted with LCP, complies with all federal, state and local air quality requirements, a spokesperson wrote in an email to IndyStar. These requirements ensure emissions remain lower than state standards set to protect human health.
The two companies worked with IDEM prior to submitting the application to make sure the gas-fired generators remain in compliance with state regulations, the spokesperson wrote.
Inskeep noted that Meta seems to favor natural gas over diesel more than do other data center operators such as Google and Amazon, which rely on diesel.
“So far, we have not seen Meta file for hundreds of backup diesel generators, so that’s an interesting nuance,” Inskeep said.
Inskeep and others noted that operations such as this create upward pressure on natural gas markets, causing potential affordability impacts for other customers.
Jeff Rissman and Brendan Pierpont, directors at the non-partisan think tank Energy Innovations, said they’re seeing this phenomenon across the country. The two said U.S. data centers frequently build out these off-grid gas operations to power their facilities.
While it seems at first glance that such gas operations would not affect ratepayers, there are indirect price impacts on the natural gas market, Rissman told IndyStar. Besides affecting market prices, the data center facilities no longer contribute to the regional grid.
“That in itself could have worse impacts on utility customers because the utility cannot charge (the data centers) to help maintain grid infrastructure,” Rissman said.
LCP system’s fuel demand will not affect utility customers, Bland said.
“If anything, natural gas in this country is at a very low cost point,” Bland said.
While Bland couldn’t provide an exact timeline of when to expect the generators to be operational in Lebanon, he said the company can likely get the site set up within a month after IDEM approves the permit application.
Karl Schneider is an IndyStar environment reporter. You can reach him at karl.schneider@indystar.com. Follow him on BlueSky or Twitter @karlstartswithk
IndyStar’s environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Meta data center in Lebanon plans temporary off-grid gas facility
Reporting by Karl Schneider, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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By Karl Schneider, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
