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New Jersey Data Center Intel
Latest data center news, projects, power and policy across New Jersey — updated daily.
Recent New Jersey data center news
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The outlook for real estate and infrastructure in a changing world
McKinsey Associate Partner Adrian Kwok explains how real estate and infrastructure are increasingly overlapping and how AI can accelerate planning, operations, and lifecycle management for both sectors.
- Main announcement/action: Adrian Kwok (McKinsey) outlines that real estate asset classes such as warehousing, data centers, hospitals, and affordable housing are now seen as infrastructure equivalents; McKinsey projects $106 trillion in infrastructure investment through 2040 and $16 trillion specifically for social infrastructure (hospitals, affordable housing, educational facilities, civic buildings). He highlights the accelerating role of AI across asset lifecycles and the need for private–public partnerships and creative funding sources to unlock investment.
- Background and details: The conversation notes demand drivers like global population growth, rapid urbanization, and aging populations (U.S. and Europe); examples include converting underutilized office space to residential, repurposing federal sites into data centers, and private-capital involvement (the value of dedicated infrastructure assets held by private-capital firms has tripled since 2016). The piece is an edited interview between Eric Quiñones and Adrian Kwok and focuses on concrete trends, funding options, and AI applications rather than forecasting speculative outcomes.
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Essential Utilities Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results
Essential Utilities announced Q3 2025 financial results and multi-year infrastructure and strategic actions.
Main announcement: Essential reported Q3 2025 net income of $92.1 million ($0.33 per share) and quarter revenues of $477.0 million, while reaffirming a capital investment plan of approximately $7.8 billion from 2025–2029 (including $1.4–$1.5 billion expected in 2025). The company also announced an all-stock merger agreement with American Water Works Company, Inc. (announced Oct 27, 2025) to create a combined public utility with an approximate pro forma market capitalization of $40 billion and combined enterprise value of $63 billion, with the transaction expected to close by the end of Q1 2027 subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.
Other key details and partnerships: Essential signed an agreement with International Electric Power III, LLC (IEP) to invest in a 1,400-acre data center project in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where Aqua will design, build, and operate an 18 million gallons per day (MGD) water treatment plant (expected operational mid-2029); the company expects to finance approximately $25 million of the data center investment via its ATM program in 2025. Rate awards/surcharges totaling $101.5 million were received across water and gas segments (water: $92.6 million; gas: $8.9 million). Webcast remarks: Date: November 5, 2025; Time: 9 a.m. ET; Access: Essential.co Investors page; archived for one year.
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Essential Utilities Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results
Essential Utilities announced its third-quarter 2025 financial results and significant strategic actions, including an agreement to invest in a Greene County, Pennsylvania data center project and a definitive all‑stock merger agreement with American Water Works Company, Inc.
- Quarter results & merger: Reported Q3 2025 net income of $92.1 million and revenues of $477.0 million; board declared a $0.3426 per share quarterly dividend payable Dec 1, 2025; announced a definitive all‑stock, tax‑free merger with American Water Works Company, Inc. creating a pro forma market capitalization of approximately $40 billion and combined enterprise value of approximately $63 billion, with the transaction expected to close by end of Q1 2027, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals (including Hart‑Scott‑Rodino clearance).
- Capital programs & project details: Plans ~$7.8 billion of regulated infrastructure investment from 2025–2029 (including >300 PFAS projects); expects 2025 regulated infrastructure investments of $1.4–$1.5 billion; Aqua will design, build, and operate an 18 MGD water treatment plant for a 1,400‑acre Greene County data center/power project (operational target mid‑2029); company reaffirmed a 60% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 2035 (2019 baseline) and expects to raise ~$350 million equity in 2025 (including $25 million to finance the data center investment).
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Roundup: Meta goes solar / Airport woes / Commercial real estate
Meta signed a deal to buy 385 megawatts of power from two new Louisiana solar plants to help run its new $10 billion data center and advance its climate goals.
- Deal details: Meta signed a deal to purchase 385 megawatts of power from two solar plants built by Treaty Oak Clean Energy in Sabine and Morehouse parishes, which will connect into Entergy’s Louisiana grid to help power Meta’s new $10 billion data center.
- Other items in the roundup:Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned air travel could worsen if air traffic controllers miss another paycheck (controllers missed pay on Oct. 28 and are scheduled to miss another next Tuesday); Moody’s told CNBC that commercial real estate dealmaking in 2025 is stalled, with overall deal value up 5% year-over-year, hotels lagging, and offices and open-air retail seeing renewed buyer interest.
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Sitetracker Selected by esVolta to Streamline Utility-Scale Energy Storage Operations
Sitetracker announced that esVolta, LP has chosen Sitetracker’s Asset Lifecycle Management platform to centralize project execution, asset tracking, and operations for utility-scale battery storage projects.
- Main announcement & implementation: esVolta will implement Sitetracker to replace spreadsheet-based processes with a single source of truth delivering real-time visibility across development and asset management workflows; listed platform benefits include Accurate Forecasting and Reporting, Improved Collaboration and Team Handoffs, Integration with existing financial and construction management platforms, and Scalability for Growth.
- Background & supporting details: esVolta is a developer, owner, and operator of utility-scale battery storage projects across North America; statements include a quote from Marci Palmstrom (esVolta VP of Asset Management) and a comment from Giuseppe Incitti (CEO, Sitetracker); announcement originates from Montclair, N.J. and media contact is Kathleen Ojo (press@sitetracker.com).
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Responding to the climate impact of generative AI
MIT News explores ways experts at MIT and partner institutions are working to reduce generative AI’s carbon footprint.
- Main announcement/action: MIT researchers (including MIT Lincoln Laboratory, MITEI, CSAIL, and the FutureTech Research Project) describe and test interventions to cut AI’s operational and embodied carbon through algorithmic efficiency, hardware tuning (e.g., lowering GPU power to ~three-tenths), training-time optimizations (stopping early to avoid last 2–3 percentage points of accuracy), workload scheduling to match renewable supply, long-duration energy storage, and site selection (example: Meta’s Lulea data center in northern Sweden). The article cites IEA and Goldman Sachs projections: ~945 TWh data-center electricity demand by 2030, and an analysis that ~60% of the increased demand could be met by fossil fuels, adding ~220 million tons of CO2.
- Background and additional details: Researchers developed concepts and tools such as the negaflop (algorithmic savings), MIT/Princeton’s GenX planning tool, and the Net Climate Impact Score; studies show about half the electricity for training is used to gain the final 2–3 percentage points of accuracy, and software/tooling can avoid large fractions of wasted compute (example: avoiding ~80% of wasted training simulations). The article also notes embodied carbon in data-center construction (companies like Meta and Google exploring sustainable materials) and ongoing research into flexible, multi-tenant scheduling and long-duration storage to change the emission mix of data centers.
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Blackstone Energy to acquire Hill Top Energy Center for nearly $1bn
Blackstone Energy Transition Partners has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Hill Top Energy Center (620MW) in Greene County, Pennsylvania, from Ardian for nearly $1bn.
- Deal and asset details: The transaction is for the 620MW Hill Top Energy Center (completed in 2021), a combined cycle gas turbine plant in Greene County that will serve the PJM (Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland) market to meet rising electricity demand driven by data centres. Advisors: Santander and Houlihan Lokey acted as financial advisors to Blackstone Energy Transition Partners; Kirkland & Ellis served as legal advisor.
- Context and related commitments: The acquisition aligns with Blackstone’s July commitment to invest over $25bn in Pennsylvania’s digital and energy infrastructure and the firm’s statement that it aims to stimulate an additional $60bn of funding into the Commonwealth. The company previously agreed earlier this year to acquire the 774MW Potomac Energy Center in Loudoun County, Virginia.
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Big Tech's energy-hungry data centers could be bumped off grids during power emergencies
Policymakers and grid operators are proposing rules to allow utilities or grid operators to disconnect large data centers during power emergencies.
- Main action: Several U.S. regions are considering or implementing rules that would let utilities or grid operators disconnect large data centers during power emergencies to avoid widespread blackouts; Texas passed a bill in June ordering standards for power emergencies, PJM (which serves 65 million people) has proposed that proposed data centers may not be guaranteed electricity during a power emergency, and the Indiana & Michigan Power and Google filed a power-supply contract for a proposed $2 billion Fort Wayne data center in which Google agreed to reduce electricity use when the grid is stressed (key contract details remain confidential).
- Background and details: Grid operators such as Southwest Power Pool (serving 18 million people) and Monitoring Analytics warn data center load could overwhelm grids; data centers use backup diesel generators, the Data Center Coalition seeks flexible standards, and advocates like Dan Diorio recommend pairing mandatory actions with financial rewards for voluntary reductions. The surge in demand is linked to AI growth since late 2022 (ChatGPT), and regulators and governors have raised legal and investment concerns about the proposals.
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New Data Center Developments: September 2025
DataCenterKnowledge published a curated roundup of recent global data center project announcements and large power and financing deals.
- Key development summary: The roundup details multiple major projects and deals, including Equinix’s new partnerships with Radiant, ULC-Energy, and Stellaria for next-gen nuclear power and expanded solid-oxide fuel cell use with Bloom Energy; Caterpillar agreed with Joule Capital Partners to provide 4 GW of CHP power for a planned Utah campus (target launch sometime next year); Meta’s Hyperion Louisiana campus is expected to consume up to 5 GW; CoreWeave bought a 102-acre campus for $322 million; Vantage revealed plans to invest over $25 billion in a 1.4 GW / 1,200-acre Texas campus; EdgeConneX and Lambda are developing a 30+ MW dual-city AI data center in Chicago and Atlanta; Oracle / Elea / Rio de Janeiro target 1.5 GW by 2027 (expandable to 3.2 GW by 2032) for ‘Rio AI City’.
- Background and technical/financial details: The article frames projects against record-breaking demand and grid limitations; it notes energy and cooling approaches such as CHP and captured waste heat, solid-oxide fuel cells, high-voltage battery storage, and CDC Australia’s proposed 200 MW campus with a closed-loop zero-water primary cooling system. It also lists financing and deal figures: QTS announcing a $10 billion campus, STACK investing $1.66 billion in Johor, NEXTDC adding A$3.5 billion new debt within A$6.4 billion total facilities, and Keppel raising $4.9 billion this year toward a $150 billion funds target by 2030.
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Potential Energy: Is BESS the Answer to Data Centers’ Gridlocked Future?
De Gaulle Fleurance hosted a webinar on the evolving role of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Europe’s decarbonization efforts.
- Confirmed facts & project data: The webinar featured legal and energy experts from France, Belgium, Poland, and the UK; RTE projects renewable output could reach 320 TWh by 2035; battery capacity grew from <50 MW to 1.07 GW in five years, with >7 GW of projects holding grid access rights; the EU added 11.9 GW of BESS last year and the U.S. reported a 34% storage increase as of March 2024; identified vendors include ZincFive, Schneider Electric, Eaton, EPC Power, and Vertiv; U.S. states with SGIPs: California, New York, Maryland, New Jersey and other supportive states include Virginia, Oregon, Iowa, Texas.
- Costs, policies & planned initiatives: Reported average BESS cost $400–$600 per kWh (Exenell); U.S. is on track to install ~15 GW in 2025 (~25% increase over 2024) (projection); NESO’s connections reform is expected/hopecasting to unlock £40 billion ($53 billion) per year (anticipated); regulatory milestones cited include FERC Order No. 841 (2020) allowing batteries in wholesale markets and EU measures like VAT exemptions and tariff waivers; distinctions noted between confirmed deployments (installed GW) and planned/projection figures (15 GW in 2025, NESO investment expectations).