The City of Ames is considering a proposal to bring a data center to the southern edge of the city.
Des Moines-based company Lightedge is interested in building a 100,000-square-foot building at the James Herman Banning Ames Municipal Airport.
The Ames City Council reviewed the proposal at a workshop on Tuesday, June 16, and chose to place it on the agenda for next week’s formal meeting on June 23.
Where would the data center be located in Ames?
Lightedge is interested in nearly 11 acres along Aviation Way near the airport.
The area is currently used for farmland but is shown within the 2020 Airport Master Plan as land available for non-aeronautical uses, according to city documents.
Though Lightedge prefers the property near the airport, other options may include 300 Airport Road − a former Danfoss operation − or property within the Dayton small-lot industrial park along Bailey Avenue.
What is Lightedge?
Lightedge is a data protection company that has two data centers in Des Moines, totaling 78,000 square feet. According to its website, the company hosts a number of cloud-based applications across the country at 13 data centers in states such as Texas, Minnesota, Virginia, Missouri, and Arizona. The Ames data center would be the company’s second in Iowa.
Ames would need to sell or lease land for a data center
Ames could either sell or lease the airport property to Lightedge for a non-aviation use.
A long-term lease is preferred since it requires federal approval. Additionally, leasing airport land for non-aeronautical uses enables the airport to earn revenue.
Data center project would be split into three phases
Lightedge’s proposal includes constructing the entire building shell and about 10% of its ultimate server buildout during phase I.
The second phase would expand the buildout to 25% capacity.
The final phase would be based on demand across a 10-year span, while the remaining capacity inside the building would be occupied by servers.
Here’s how much energy a new data center would use in Ames
The data center’s first phase would use three megawatts of electrical demand; the second phase would follow shortly and use six megawatts; and the full project buildout would use 25 megawatts.
A 69-kilovolt transmission extension and a substation are needed for the full buildout.
Extending transmission lines is typically performed using overhead poles, which cannot cross the airport or interfere with takeoff and landing approaches. City documents also note that burying transmission lines underground is expensive.
City staff came up with a number of solutions for new transmission lines, including:
The data center would be expected to pay for the new lines under Ames’ Utilities Excess Facilities Charge.
What’s next for the possible data center in Ames?
The council decided to schedule a staff presentation at the June 23 meeting. There will be no public comment, and the council will not make a decision.
A separate meeting for public feedback will be scheduled.
The council also requested a memo from staff on legal measures to limit the use of data centers.
Those motions are not indicative of whether the council is supportive or not, instead, they are “getting a dialogue going with the public,” Ward 1 Rep. Bronwyn Beatty-Hansen said during Tuesday’s work session.
A Facebook group, Ames vs Data Centers, has formed since the proposal was published. As of Wednesday, June 17, the group had 167 members.
Ward 2 Rep. Tim Gartin said the city needs to provide “substantial space for public input.”
“This is new for us, and I want to hear both sides,” Gartin said on Tuesday. “I think the community would be very interested in having an opportunity to share their concern.”
City staff, in the memo shared for the June 16 workshop, said Lightedge’s data center would “create an additional tax base,” and because of its scale and use of resources, “a smaller, regional-sized facility that is air-cooled avoids many of the negative aspects and concerns ascribed to data centers.”
Celia Brocker is a government, crime, political and education reporter for the Ames Tribune. She can be reached at CBrocker@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Ames weighs data center proposal. How much energy will it use?
Reporting by Celia Brocker, Ames Tribune / Ames Tribune
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By Celia Brocker, Ames Tribune | USA TODAY Network
