New Era Energy Secures Power for 450-MW Hyperscale AI Facility in Permian Basin
Key Highlights
- - Strategic partnerships with Turbine-X and Thunderhead Energy enable secure access to gas turbines and flexible power systems, reducing supply chain risks.
- - The project responds to increasing data center energy demands forecasted to grow significantly by the early 2030s.
- - Legal and regulatory challenges highlight the importance of innovative, resilient power strategies in the evolving digital economy.
A 450-MW behind-the-meter project is now connected with power generation resources required to support a planned artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled and hyperscale computing facility on the Texas side of the Permian Basin oil and gas region.
New Era Energy & Digital, Inc., which recently acquired full control of the Texas Critical Data Center (TCDC) project under development near Odessa in west Texas, is securing access to major generation equipment needed for the AI factory campus. New Era’s development partner Thunderhead Energy Solutions has entered into a commercial arrangement with power generation channel supplier Turbine-X Energy.
Off Grid Power demand for the TCDC
The deal supports high performance computing (HPC) capacity goals for the Texas Critical Data Center campus if and when it’s fully operational in several years. New Era (originally called New Era Helium) started developing the project in tandem with Sharon AI, but last year acquired the latter’s 50% stake in the TCDC. New Era last month announced it was also partnering with Primary Digital on the project development.
"In an environment where power availability is the primary constraint to AI and HPC expansion, our behind-the-meter (BTM) strategy, executed with expert partners like Thunderhead, is the definitive solution," said Will Gray, CEO of New Era Energy & Digital, in a statement. "Securing the critical-path power equipment for our anchor tenant's build-out significantly de-risks the project's supply chain and construction timeline—all without direct capital expenditure from New Era. This is our model in action."
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The anticipated acceleration of AI and cloud-based computing capacity is pushing hyperscalers such as Meta, Amazon, Google, Oracle and Microsoft to shore up baseload power access beyond the time-consuming utility grid interconnection processes and indirect renewable energy power purchase agreements. A hyperscale is a data tenant with as much or more than 1 gigawatt of computing capacity per facility.
Turbine-X Energy is a supplier of potential cross-platform power generation solutions. Last year, the company announced that Baker Hughes would provide Turbine-X Energy with its NovaLT gas turbine technology and auxiliary equipment to power off-grid and behind-the-meter data center projects in North America.
“Due to surging demand for generative AI, we see increasing opportunities for our power generation solutions to support behind-the-meter power requirements for data centers,” Ganesh Ramaswamy, Executive Vice President of Industrial & Energy Technology at Baker Hughes, said as part of that March 2025 deal with Turbine-X. “We’re ready to drive progress at scale, leveraging our expertise and network of strategic partners to quickly provide market-ready, reliable, flexible, and efficient solutions to partners in the data center market, as well as broader industrial adjacencies where access to power is business critical.”
"Old grid," presidential directive and customer affordability motivate BTM moves
The development of off-grid and BTM projects follows the Trump Administration’s recent Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which is aimed at trying to ensure affordability for residential and small-sector electricity customers despite the seismic shift of new generation needed by AI, cloud-based computing and electrification demand growth.
In his State of the Union address only a week ago, President Trump took a portion of his speech to focus on the challenges faced by the utilities in the era of AI and the so-called Industrial Compute Age.
“We have an old grid,” President Trump said in the SOTU. “It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that’s needed. So, I’m telling them they can build their own plant. They’re going to produce their own electricity. It will ensure the company’s ability to get electricity while at the same time lowering prices of electricity for you, and could be very substantial, for all your cities and towns. You are going to see good things happen over the next number of years.”
Turbine-X Energy is contracted to connect the TCDC and other data centers to gas turbines, reciprocating engine systems for flexible power, combined heat and power and even microgrid solutions, according to the company.
Thunderhead Energy Solutions is the power infrastructure developer working with data complex owner New Era.
The TCDC project has endured some controversies and legal challenges during its development phase. New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez late last year filed a state lawsuit against New Era and CEO E. Will Gray, alleging fraud and environmental infractions by the company.
New Era stock plummeted after the legal action, although the company responded by calling Torrez's filing "baseless" and an "uninformed attack" without merit.
Adequate power capacity for rising AI and cloud-based computer demand is a key concern for the U.S. and world these days. Some forecasts are predicting an added 125 GW or more of data center demand coming online by the early 2030s.
Last year, the American Society of Civil Engineers rated the U.S. energy infrastructure as a lowly D+ in its quadrennial report card. The power grid needs perhaps $1 trillion in transmission, distribution and power generation investment to meet the future demand challenges of expanding graphic processing units, AI and automation, according to the ASCE and other forecasters.
About the Author
Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
Rod Walton has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World.
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.