Flexible Site Layouts to Unlock Sunbury’s Data Center Potential

Since its start-up in 1949, the Sunbury Generation plant has been an economic boom to the community, delivering power and jobs to the Sunbury region. The coal-fired plant along the Susquehanna River has since been deactivated, leaving the owner, Robindale Energy, with a valuable, 200-acre property equipped with 41 MW of power available from an oil-fired combustion turbine generator and a diesel generator. All of the original site infrastructure remains, including ample water withdrawal permits and access to an adjacent natural gas transmission line.

Robindale contacted GFT to assist with ideas for repurposing the site, recognizing that it has a valuable space with easy access to power and water, as well as a willing workforce. The site is also located within a Pennsylvania Keystone Opportunity Expansion Zone (KOEZ), which provides state and local tax incentives to support redevelopment and economic investment. To support discussions with developers, the client needed conceptual layouts showing the full capacity and potential of the buildout.

Given ample power and water availability, the team believed the site was a good candidate for a data center. Planning this type of development required evaluating several site conditions, including floodplain areas, existing transmission lines, building codes, and previously developed industrial land. The layouts also had to account for the electrical demand typical of data centers, as well as space for substations, utility corridors, internal roadways, and stormwater management facilities.

The client needed layouts for site marketing and developer and utility discussions, while remaining flexible as project concepts evolved.

GFT prepared conceptual layouts to evaluate how the Sunbury property could support a data center campus. Several site configurations were developed to test different building arrangements and infrastructure locations.

Given the site conditions and limiting characteristics, we proposed a site layout that could accommodate a data center campus with up to 450 MW of compute load. The layout examined how up to six data center buildings could fit within the available site area. Each configuration considered building placement, internal site circulation, electrical infrastructure, and stormwater requirements. Potential locations for substations and electrical distribution infrastructure were also identified.

To estimate the building size, power demand, and substation sizes, the team reviewed comparable data center developments and relied on our team of experts. GFT developed a square-foot-per-megawatt benchmark to estimate the building footprint. We coordinated with a battery storage manufacturer to understand how battery storage could impact the on-site electrical grid. We reviewed building codes to evaluate trade-offs between horizontal versus vertical space configurations. We reviewed the site topography to compare floodwater elevations and the potential cut-and-fill quantities to set the buildings at a safe elevation. Our team researched utilities proximate to the site and the interconnection requirements to determine how much power might be available to any development.

Ultimately, we conceived a layout and accompanying single-line power diagram to show how a final site buildout might look. We staged the power infrastructure to grow with the site’s demands. We discussed the pros and cons of various technologies, including adding renewable energy to the site to increase the available power. This information was presented to Robindale for incorporation into their site marketing plans.