FERC begins public comment period on data center proposal

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has opened up a public comment period on the controversial plan for a $413-million underwater data center off Eastport, which is strongly opposed by area residents. The proposal took a step forward on August 19 when the federal agency accepted the filing of an application for a preliminary permit from DeepGreen Western Passage. Acceptance of the application does not mean that a preliminary permit has been approved by FERC. Rather, acceptance of the filing begins a 60-day period for public comments and requests for intervenor status, which now can be submitted by the public and interested organizations and agencies until Monday, October 19.

Following that period, FERC will make a decision on whether to issue a preliminary permit. If it is issued, the two-year permit only authorizes DeepGreen to conduct environmental baseline studies and engineering work; it does not authorize any construction, and the company would not be allowed to perform any land-disturbing activities. At some point in the future, DeepGreen would then have to apply for a license from FERC to undertake the construction of the project.

On July 15 FERC had sent a letter to DeepGreen identifying deficiencies with the application and giving the company 45 days to correct them. Those deficiencies included not identifying all of the affected tribes; not providing sufficient information about the project structures, including transmission lines and marine turbines; failing to provide the boundary for phase 1 of the project development; and not including why the proposed project requires an operational envelope that is larger than the active infrastructure footprint.

On August 6 Louis Wolfson of Needham, Mass., managing member of DeepGreen, filed a response to correct the deficiencies. The application for a 51-megawatt tidal energy and underwater AI data center in Johnson's Cove, south of Kendall's Head, had initially been submitted to FERC in February. Then in June, Wolfson amended the application, reducing the size of the proposal. The proposed 15-megawatt design for phase 1 was amended to a one- to five-megawatt design, and phase II was downscaled from 51 megawatts to 10 to 15 MW. That filing states, "This substantial scale reduction ensures that any future data-gathering, modeling or potential deployment under a preliminary permit remains low-profile, highly localized and designed strictly to serve regional community frameworks."

While DeepGreen initially sought a permit for 400 acres, the scope for the phase 1 pilot project was reduced to 27.1 acres in the August 6 amendment to the application. The company leaves open the possibility to seek to expand the boundary for phase 2. For phase 1, the proposed project includes a 3.5-meter high and 24-meter wide subsea modular universal docking cradle; 34 subsea compute pods; a tidal sensing power platform; up to 16 turbine-generator units; and a 1.5-mile-long subsea cable. It would be configured as a captive generation loop without any connection to the power grid. For phase 2, the number of turbine units would be increased to a maximum of 50.