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Baryonyx to build largest offshore wind farms in U.S., power Tier 4 data centers

Energy start-up Baryonyx has won bids for three land leases from Texas to build Tier 4 data centers powered primarily by wind farms.The company's leases include two offshore sites in the Gulf of Mexico and one on land in the Texas panhandle (see map below).
Written by Andrew Nusca, Contributor

Energy start-up Baryonyx has won bids for three land leases from Texas to build Tier 4 data centers powered primarily by wind farms.

The company's leases include two offshore sites in the Gulf of Mexico and one on land in the Texas panhandle (see map below). Both offshore sites are each more than 19,000 acres each and the Dallam County site on land is 8,064 acres.

The Baryonyx coastal projects are poised to be the "biggest offshore wind farms in the nation," according to the Texas General Land Office's official statement (.pdf). The company said its offshore farms will each produce a minimum of 750 megawatts of power using turbines that produce up to five megawatts each.

"Developing wind energy for Texas is just plain smart, it's not just sustainable energy to power our businesses, it's sustainable funding for public education too," Jerry Patterson, commissioner of the Texas General Land Office, which granted Baryonyx the leases, said in a statement.

Once the wind farms are operational, Baryonyx will provide power to the Texas General Land Office, which will sell the electricity to schools, prisons and cities. Profits will be placed in the state's Permanent School Fund.

With a 30-year lease, the wind farms must provide the school fund with a minimum of $338 million, according to the deal.

So what about those data centers? Baryonyx said it plans to build secure, mission-critical Tier 4 data centers, according to the official release (.pdf):

Each project is proposed to include co-located, scaleable 'Tier 4' data-center powered by wind energy in combination with other low-carbon energy production and storage technologies. Ultimately through development of the projects on the leases granted by the State of Texas, Baryonyx will be a leading provider of both renewable energy and low-carbon, on-line data storage and computational services.

Ian Hatton, Chief Executive Officer of Baryonyx Corporation commented "since the mid-1960's consumption of oil and gas has outstripped reserves replacement by the exploration drill-bit. There has also been a relentless increase in demand for energy on a global basis. In the same period, global adoption of web delivered services – particularly those of the larger search engines - has substantially added to energy demand and now accounts for over 1.5% of global energy demand with a substantive carbon footprint. That demand is still increasing.

Baryonyx CEO Douwe Franssens said he had no estimate on how many turbines are planned, according to an AP report, and that construction could begin in two or three years. [via CNET]

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