Revolutionary moves forward
The DataAcre roadmap for rural data center development
DataAcre exists to redefine what a data center means to the places they land in. These are the product and platform moves we are building toward. Every approach on this page has a working precedent in production somewhere in the world. Every claim is sourced. This is our position and our direction.
The current friction around data centers
The phrase “data center” often lands with a negative connotation in rural communities. Concerns about noise, water use, traffic, visual impact, and strain on the local grid are real, and they deserve to be taken seriously. Data centers are also vital infrastructure for the information age. Everything from hospital records to emergency services to modern farming depends on them. The question is not whether they should exist, but how they can be built in a way that actually benefits the places they land in.
DataAcre is building a platform that reframes data centers as a source of community value rather than a tax on the neighborhood. The five moves below are the product positions we are committed to. Each one has documented precedents already running, paired with specific sources so anyone can verify them.
Five revolutionary moves forward
Drawn from projects running in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, and early U.S. pilots. Each move has been implemented somewhere in the world. None of them are theoretical.
Partial parcel sales. Keep the farm, sell only the best acres
Data center buyers rarely need 600 acres. They typically need 100 to 200 contiguous, flat, power adjacent acres. DataAcre's scoring engine identifies the sub parcel within a larger property that best fits data center criteria, leaving the rest intact for farming or other uses. A farmer can sell the top scoring 120 acres for a premium and continue growing on the remaining 480. Legal subdivision is already allowed in most counties. The rest of the farm keeps farming.
Sources and precedent
- Cushman & Wakefield 2024 Data Center Markets Report: the average parcel acquired was 224 acres, up 144% from 2022.
- USDA Farm Service Agency: subdivision of agricultural parcels is permitted in all 50 states subject to local zoning.
- Real example: in 2023, a Loudoun County, VA landowner sold 147 acres of a 430 acre property and retained the balance for farming (public deed records).
Waste heat greenhouses. Turn exhaust into produce and protein
Data centers produce enormous amounts of low grade waste heat. Today most of that heat is exhausted into the air through evaporative cooling towers. DataAcre pushes for that heat to be piped into on site greenhouses to extend growing seasons for tomatoes, leafy greens, herbs, and mushrooms that would not otherwise survive northern winters. Greenhouses can also host high yield protein sources like algae and microgreens. A neighboring farmer, cooperative, or subleased operator can run the greenhouse and sell the produce locally, reducing food miles and giving the community a tangible benefit from the facility next door.
Sources and precedent
- Meta's Odense, Denmark data center: waste heat is piped into the Fjernvarme Fyn district heating network, warming approximately 6,900 homes (Meta Sustainability Report 2022, Fjernvarme Fyn public statements).
- Stockholm Data Parks: 10 megawatts of waste heat in reuse, plans to heat 10% of Stockholm's buildings by 2035 (Stockholm Exergi, stockholmdataparks.com).
- The Dutch Westland district runs over 2,000 hectares of heated greenhouses on industrial waste heat (Wageningen University research).
- Nautilus Data Technologies Stockton (USA) recovers waste heat for on site reuse, demonstrating U.S. feasibility.
Partially buried and ground coupled facilities
Below the frost line, the earth sits at a near constant 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit year round. DataAcre favors facilities built with lower floors set into the ground to use ground source heat exchange and dramatically cut cooling load. The same principle geothermal home HVAC systems use. Partial burial also reduces the visual footprint of a data center from the road, which can ease zoning pushback and help the facility blend into the landscape instead of dominating it.
Sources and precedent
- Lefdal Mine Datacenter, Norway: built inside a former olivine mine, uses nearby fjord water for cooling at 8 degrees Celsius year round (lefdalmine.com).
- Iron Mountain Room 48 underground data center, Boyers, Pennsylvania: 145 acre underground limestone facility operating since 2002, ambient 56 degrees Fahrenheit (ironmountain.com).
- Deltalis Swiss Mountain Bunker Data Center: located in a former Swiss military bunker inside the Alps (deltalis.com).
- U.S. Department of Energy: ground source heat pumps reduce cooling energy consumption 25 to 50% compared to conventional systems (energy.gov/energysaver/geothermal-heat-pumps).
Solar hybrid campuses. A neighborhood power source, not just a power sink
A typical data center campus uses only 5%–15% of its land for the actual building footprint. The rest is buffer, parking, and utility corridors. DataAcre is building deal structures where the landowner retains solar rights on the unused majority of the land. Panels go on rooftops, carports, and perimeter land. Some of that electricity powers the data center directly via a behind the meter power purchase agreement. The surplus feeds the local grid at below market rates for nearby homes and small businesses, and the landowner collects monthly royalties on the generation. The result is a facility that produces more electricity than it consumes on site, a landowner who earns an ongoing income stream on top of the land sale, and a community that gets access to a new local power source.
Sources and precedent
- Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta collectively signed over 50 gigawatts of renewable power purchase agreements in 2023 and 2024 (BloombergNEF Corporate Energy Market Outlook 2024).
- Meta's Temple, Texas data center campus is directly paired with a 300 megawatt solar installation (Meta Sustainability Report 2023).
- U.S. Department of Energy on split estate deals: surface rights and solar rights can be legally severed and separately conveyed in most states (energy.gov solar rights resource).
- Agrivoltaics research at the University of Arizona Biosphere 2 shows crop yields can be maintained or improved under elevated solar arrays (Barron-Gafford et al., Nature Sustainability 2019).
Community benefit agreements as a default
DataAcre listings surface optional community benefit terms to buyers upfront. Local hiring guarantees, stormwater infrastructure, broadband expansion, or school district funding. Counties that pre negotiate these terms tend to move faster through permitting and attract better projects. Data centers that accept them tend to break ground on day one instead of fighting a year of zoning hearings. The local community ends up with new jobs, new services, and a facility that is actively supporting the county rather than just sitting on it.
Sources and precedent
- Prince William County, VA and Loudoun County, VA have both negotiated community benefit packages for data center developments, including rural preservation easements and school funding commitments (county board meeting records, 2022 to 2024).
- Pittsylvania County, VA 2024 data center zoning ordinance requires community benefit disclosures before permit approval (Pittsylvania County code).
- Partnership for Working Families: Community Benefits Agreements model toolkit, used in 40+ large scale projects nationally (forworkingfamilies.org).
Reframing what “data center” means locally
Right now the phrase triggers concern in most small towns. Noise. Water draw. Strain on the grid. Big windowless buildings with no signs of life. Those concerns are not wrong. But a data center that heats a local greenhouse, powers nearby homes with on site solar, hires from the local workforce, and is buried halfway into the hill so you can barely see it from the highway is a different animal than the one most people picture.
When a community can point to a new data center and say “that facility gave us jobs, lower electric bills, a greenhouse that grows lettuce through January, and a broadband upgrade for the whole county,” the story changes. These moves don't solve every concern about data centers. They don't eliminate water use or electrical demand entirely. But they are real ways to make the footprint of a facility count for something beyond the company that owns it. DataAcre is built around making that the default, not the exception.