Eolian monetizes its BESS grid connection for new Texas data center

Eolian, a US-based developer, owner, and operator of utility-scale energy storage, solar, and wind projects, and data center giant CyrusOne have taken a novel path to getting a data center connected and in doing so, has carved a new path for BESS project economics, with a partnership in Fort Worth, Texas.

Eolian, backed by Global Infrastructure Partners, now part of BlackRock, is partnering with CyrusOne on a new data center called DFW7, where the energy connection will take an existing high-voltage transmission infrastructure and substation capacity adjacent to the new facility, effectively supplied by Eolian’s BESS infrastructure at its Chishold Grid battery site, a 100 MW /​125 MWh facility. The facility was originally built by Able Grid, with construction starting in 2020, and Sungrow announcing it would supply the fully integrated battery storage system for Chisholm in 2021.

By co-locating the DFW7 data center campus at the Chisholm Grid site, the deal as announced shows that a BESS facility’s best asset may not just be its big battery but the interconnection, as the race to provide AI compute to major tech companies creates supply and demand imbalances both in terms of IT hardware but energy as well.

In a similar situation, though reversed, a data center site in Pacific Northwest decided to add a 31 MW BESS site to speed up the granting of a grid interconnect, then a deal between Calibrant Energy and Aligned Data Centers.

Executives from CyrusOne and Eolian spoke of advantages in rapidly advancing projects through npovel approaches, via a released statement.

“Our customers’ continued growth drives demand for new capacity. Leveraging the existing infrastructure at the Fort Worth campus enables CyrusOne to deliver large-scale capacity to customers beginning in 2026,” said Eric Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer of CyrusOne. “CyrusOne is accelerating time-to-market for our customers by working creatively with Eolian as an established energy project developer and operator with existing sites in locations that would be difficult to replicate.”

Another intriguing element to the deal is that Eolian said it will modernize and upgrade the utility-scale BESS system, which originally was one of the first in Texas. The existing grid infrastructure that supplies the BESS then provides energy supply to the initial phases of digital infrastructure. In effect, the modernization will take the battery offline, and the company will be paid despite not using the battery.

“This project is about problem-solving— using existing infrastructure intelligently to deliver speed to power and speed to datacenter growth,” said Aaron Zubaty, Chief Executive Officer of Eolian. “By developing flexible capacity resources at highly networked grid locations, we can enable hyperscale growth without duplicating facilities, expanding transmission, or utilizing additional industrial real estate. This is exactly how the grid should evolve — efficiently, quickly, and in direct response to real load growth. Projects like DFW7 prove that the fastest path forward is not necessarily only to construct transmission infrastructure, but also first to more efficiently use what we have already built.”

Zubaty added in comments from his personal LinkedIn profile that ‘we saw it coming years ago’.

“Since 2019, we have been constructing and operating grid-scale battery storage in locations that are not only critical for enhancing system reliability and enable more efficient use of the transmission grid … but that are also ideal sites for adding new load growth adjacent to growing population centers,” said Zubaty.

He also added, “Yes, Eolian has multiple additional energy+load sites that have been under development for years in growing datacenter markets and in key industrial locations.”