Post 3 – The Costs
I recall from past PNC articles that the PTS strategy for a data center included cost estimates of $16.5 million. Costs will surely have increased by now, maybe even to $25 million or more, but there is also significant infrastructure to be built.
For power, it’s reasonable to think that the facility will need upwards of five megawatts of electrical power – during the Fibrowatt discussions, we learned that the County’s entire power usage was around 25 megawatts, so this plant will require almost 20 percent of the County’s entire power load!
Most clients are sensitive to power availability and quality, so the building will probably need a second power source, especially if the clients will be government organizations (American Operations, the company noted in last week's PNC, is essentially a business development specialist for the federal market sector). Some of these clients are sensitive enough about real-time access to their data they might require a second, generator back-up in addition to the grid connection.
I learned that the power company will pay for the first connection, but the developer/owner/builder is usually responsible for the second grid connection, which can cost $1 million per megawatt; for five megawatts, Page County will need an additional $5 and $10 million just for the power infrastructure.
…and power is just the first of three critical needs for a data center – it will also need cooling, and communications, this last to be addressed by the Broadband Authority. For our purposes, it's enough just to look at the power costs.
Next Post – The Changing Technology
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