Texas Critical Data Centers, New Era Energy, Thunderhead Ink Power Agreement for Permian Data Center
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New Era Energy & Digital, said Texas Critical Data Center (TCDC) and its 50/50 joint venture with Sharon AI, has signed a non-binding term sheet with Thunderhead Energy Solutions to install a fully operational, behind-the-meter 250 MW power island for its planned hyperscale AI data center site in Ector County, Texas.
Under the agreement, Thunderhead will finance, construct, and operate approximately 250 MW of gas-fired generation capacity using a hybrid deployment of reciprocating engines and turbines.
Construction is expected to begin later this year, with the buildout targeted for completion over the next 18 months. This power infrastructure will serve as the energy backbone for TCDC’s high-performance, AI-optimized compute campus.
“The agreement with Thunderhead is one more major milestone in our buildout and reinforces our vision of delivering energy-resilient, AI-native infrastructure. It also ensures TCDC will provide robust, SB6-compliant power to support the next wave of AI growth in West Texas,” said E. Will Gray II, CEO of New Era Energy & Digital.
“We are pleased to announce the agreement with Thunderhead for a fully outsourced power island at the site, which continues to build on the multilateral power strategy being deployed to power the TCDC campus,” said Wolf Schubert, CEO of Sharon AI.
“We are excited to partner with Texas Critical Data Centers on this groundbreaking 250MW AI data center project in the Permian Basin. This partnership allows us to leverage the region’s abundant natural gas resources to deliver reliable, scalable energy solutions supporting growing digital infrastructure demand through a world-class asset,” said Brennan Zaunbrecher, founder and principal of Thunderhead Energy Solutions.
“We look forward to working closely with TCDC and the customer to bring this innovative project to fruition, and to establishing a new standard for AI infrastructure development optimized from resource to compute,” added Zaunbrecher.
The Thunderhead partnership is another critical step in enabling TCDC to deliver hyperscale GPU infrastructure to a growing pipeline of AI clients, hyperscalers, and compute partners.
New Era Energy & Digital is a developer and operator of next-generation digital infrastructure and integrated power assets. With a growing portfolio of strategically located, vertically integrated resources including powered land and powered shells, the company delivers turnkey solutions that enable hyperscale, enterprise, and edge operators to accelerate data center deployment, optimize total cost of ownership, and future-proof their infrastructure investments. A new corporate website is currently in development.
Thunderhead Energy Solutions are developers and operators of tailored energy solutions supporting the digital infrastructure value chain. Its creative approach provides customers with highly available, affordable, scalable systems which support both speed and longevity in power security. The Thunderhead team brings decades of experience and innovation in power and energy infrastructure development. Thunderhead projects are capitalized through a funding partnership with Harbert Infrastructure, an investment manager with decades of experience in the power sector.
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