Orcadian Energy cites US data centre project to support offshore feasibility

Orcadian Energy is drawing on a large-scale American data centre project to bolster the case for its proposed offshore facility in the Southern North Sea. The firm, which holds a licence for the Earlham and Orwell gas fields, has specifically referenced the Minihard data centre at the Colossus 2 complex in Memphis, Tennessee. Although the US project is onshore and reported to be nearing completion, Orcadian stated that it learned significantly about the feasibility of constructing such infrastructure from the Memphis example.

The company plans to present an update on the Earlham Gigagrid project at an investment meeting tomorrow. It intends to use the scale of the US project as a benchmark for its own feasibility assessments. The initial Earlham Gigagrid facilities are designed to deliver 200 megawatts of IT compute power. This represents half the reported capacity of the Minihard building. By applying the reported footprint of the Minihard facility, Orcadian estimates that the Earlham project would require approximately 14,500 square metres of space. The firm suggests that this area could be accommodated over six floors on a 50-metre by 50-metre offshore platform.

Despite these calculations, the Gigagrid facility has not yet completed an engineering study, and no offshore platform designs have been undertaken. Steve Brown, chief executive of Orcadian, said the company was encouraged to find that a facility of the reported dimensions could in principle be accommodated on an offshore platform. He noted that the firm will seek to increase power per rack and pursue technologies for power distribution and cooling to further reduce space requirements. Brown added that the company has gained confidence that offshore is the optimal location for data centres, particularly when integrated with carbon capture and injection into the reservoir.

Orcadian previously entered into a non-exclusive agreement with an American developer of offshore data centre infrastructure. However, both parties have agreed to terminate the arrangement. Orcadian cited concerns that the development scope and timeline for the Earlham project did not align with the potential partner’s near-term deployment priorities.