Pinal County will vote on La Osa, which could become one of Arizona's largest data center projects

Pinal County supervisors will decide Wednesday, Aug. 26, whether to approve a large-scale data center, planned 12 miles outside Eloy.

The La Osa Energy Center would include 11 data center buildings, a gas power plant and a battery energy storage system that cannot exceed 1 gigawatt of energy demand. That’s about the same demand as a large city.

The data campus is planned for use in AI computing, but no company is officially tied to the project.

Wednesday's vote is on whether to rezone over 3,000-acres of rural land for the project, of which a third will be left as open space, though it’s unclear if the land could be developed down the road.

Conditions to build

It’s clear that the county plans to hold the developer, Vermaland, to a declaration it made during the project’s last public hearing in May. At that meeting, the company said it planned to scale the project back 80% in response to community opposition.

According to the new zoning application, Vermaland would not build more than 11 data center buildings.

Vermaland has also put forward 22 new development conditions — changes company officials say are based on feedback from the lengthy public hearing in May.

Water use

Along with any conditions set by the final water provider, the county would also receive annual reports of the site’s water use, both within the data centers and at the on-site gas plant, which it can share with the public.

Vermaland has proposed limiting potable water or fresh water-use to 600 acre-feet a year. An acre-foot is more than 300,000 gallons. The owner has the option to find ways to reduce or offset that water use, perhaps by purchasing effluent water, but the county will not require this.

Energy use

On the energy side, Vermaland claims that it will completely power itself while awaiting a utility hookup. The on-site power plant will need to meet county-level requirements for emissions.

Vermaland officials also claim they will pay for 100% of the costs associated with generating and delivering the energy to the site once it is on the grid. But this would have to be enforced by the Central Arizona Irrigation and Drainage District, which is planning to serve the project.

There are also noise study requirements and directives to decommission the battery storage facility after 24-months without use, requirements developed by Vermaland as part of its application.

More hyperscalers on the horizon

Before Vermaland opted to scale back, the project would have been the largest planned data center in the state.

Now, it is among two other 1 gigawatt data centers that are moving closer to construction.

Maricopa County approved over 2,000-acres near Buckeye for a 1 gigawatt data center, last year.

Meanwhile, residents in Page are trying to reverse the council’s sale of 500-acres near Horseshoe Bend to a developer that wants to build a 1 gigawatt data center.

EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this story errantly reported that Pinal County had imposed dozens of conditions on the developer of the La Osa Energy Center. It was the developer, Vermaland, that put in writing certain restrictions on the development it had proposed.