What is powered land?

Land where the power is already delivered and energized — and why that has become the deciding factor in AI and GPU compute site selection.

Powered land is land where electrical service has already been delivered and energized — not a parcel with an application pending. For AI and GPU compute, that difference decides whether a project starts this year or in several years' time.

Why the term exists

For most of the history of data centre development, land was the scarce input and power was assumed. That reversed. Training and inference workloads pushed density up faster than utilities could add capacity, and the interconnection queue became the real bottleneck. The market needed a word for land that already has the power, and "powered land" is it.

Powered land vs greenfield: what actually differs

The grades of "powered"

The term is used loosely, and the differences are worth a great deal of money. In ascending order:

• Near power. A transmission line or substation is nearby. Nothing is committed. This is the weakest claim and the most common.
• Study complete. An interconnection study exists. Capacity is identified but not delivered.
• Capacity committed. The utility has committed in writing, usually with a date and conditions.
• Energized. Service is delivered and the site is drawing load today.
• Energized with billing history. The site has been running long enough to produce reconciled invoices — so the cost per kWh is a measurement rather than a projection.

What to verify before you believe a powered land claim

• Is the capacity in service, committed, or studied? These are three different things and are routinely conflated in listings.
• Does existing capacity sit on the same service as the expansion? Distribution-level service already delivered and a transmission-level interconnect for future load are separate projects with separate timelines.
• Is the cost billed or modelled? Ask across how many billing cycles, and whether the figure is all-in or energy-only.
• Are the boundaries surveyed? Offering geometry is not a recorded plat.
• What is the fiber position? On-property carrier fiber, or a build to reach it.

Project Foothold in these terms

Foothold sits in the top grade: 18 MW energized and billed today, on a ±207-acre campus in North Carolina roughly an hour from Charlotte, with a utility substation on site and $0.062/kWh all-in measured across 17 reconciled billing cycles covering 95 GWh delivered. A further 12 MW is committed by 2028 under a utility letter of authorisation. There is 100+ MW of campus potential beyond that — potential, not committed capacity, and we say so every time.

Boundaries shown in any materials are offering geometry, not a recorded plat. Final carve-out is subject to survey, subdivision approval and definitive documentation.