SALT LAKE CITY — Utah already hosts some large data centers, but proposals now moving through the state's approval processes would operate on a scale that makes current facilities look small by comparison.
We looked at three of the largest currently operating data centers and data center campuses in Utah. They occupy sites between 50-100 acres, and together reach a combined power capacity of 350 megawatts, according to several industry tracking sites, including datacentermap.com, datacenters.com and cleanview.co.
In West Jordan, a center operated by Novva operates a 100-acre site with one large facility and 120 megawatts of power capacity, while another 55-acre campus in the same city operates as Aligned Salt Lake. It includes three facilities with a combined 172-megawatt capacity.
In Bluffdale, Databank centers access about 46 megawatts on a campus just off I-15 near the Point of the Mountain.
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The largest proposals at various stages of approval in Utah measure potential capacity not in megawatts, but in gigawatts, and 1 gigawatt equals 1,000 megawatts.
The Stratos Project proposal in Box Elder County alone would potentially use about 28 times as much power as the three centers mentioned above combined. Even at 10,000 acres, the Stratos footprint would dwarf all three and would be more than twice the acreage of any other proposed site.
In Millard County, a proposal near Interstate 15 with Joule Partners would sit on 4,000 acres and, if it reaches full buildout, the power usage would reach about 4 gigawatts. A separate project closer to Delta in Millard County could use as much energy as the Stratos project.
Those are just three of many proposals, with others on a similar scale in places like Iron and Beaver counties.
Even if the Stratos project shrinks in size to 10,000 acres, power and water usage could remain the same. Similar proposals on much less land could use as much energy with the same need for water and other infrastructure.
