Geothermal Power and AI: Why Imperial Valley Is the Best Location for This Project in America
The AI infrastructure buildout underway globally has a fundamental problem: power. Training large AI models and running inference at scale requires enormous, continuous electricity consumption. The hyperscale facilities that host this compute — buildings the size of shopping malls filled with specialized processors — consume hundreds of megawatts each, and the pipeline for new facilities is constrained not by demand but by the availability of sufficient, reliable, affordable power in locations where large-scale development is feasible.
Imperial Valley solves this problem in ways that almost no other California location can match — and the combination of factors that make it the optimal location is not replicable by any competing site in the state.
Geothermal Baseload: The Power That Never Stops
The Salton Sea sits above one of the most significant geothermal resources in North America. The same volcanic heat that created the Salton Trough drives geothermal energy production at multiple plants already operating in the region. Geothermal power has a characteristic that solar and wind don’t: it runs continuously. No intermittency. No storage requirements for overnight operation. No weather dependency. A geothermal-powered data center runs at full capacity twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, on carbon-free electricity.
For AI compute, this matters critically. AI training runs require sustained high-power operation over periods of days to weeks. Solar power that disappears at sunset and wind power that varies with weather cannot support this load without either massive battery storage or backup fossil fuel generation. Geothermal is baseload — the data center runs when the AI training run requires it, not when the weather permits.
The Independent Grid: No Queue, No Constraints
IID’s independence from CAISO means that a developer connecting to IID’s system avoids the interconnection queue and transmission constraints that have delayed comparable projects in CAISO territory for years. The straightforward regulatory environment — one utility, manageable interconnection process, locally-controlled decision-making — is a competitive advantage that shortens project timelines significantly.
Compare this to the experience of data center developers trying to connect to CAISO’s grid in the Central Valley or Southern California. Interconnection studies take 18-36 months. Transmission upgrades required to support large new loads are allocated through complex cost-sharing arrangements. The regulatory environment is multi-layered. IID offers none of these complications — just a direct path to sufficient power in the quantities the project requires.
Land: Industrial-Zoned and Available
The project site is 75 acres of I-2 Heavy Industrial land — zoned, permitted by right, and available at a price point that no coastal California location can match. The land cost advantage for large-footprint industrial users in Imperial Valley versus comparable sites in the Bay Area or Southern California coastal communities is measured in orders of magnitude. A data center campus that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars per acre in Santa Clara can be built for a fraction of that cost per acre in Imperial County.
The combination of geothermal power, independent grid, industrial zoning, and land cost creates a value proposition for data center development that, when added together, is genuinely unique in the state. These are not arguments for why Imperial Valley is adequate for this project. They are arguments for why it is the optimal location.
The Economic Alignment
The optimal location for AI infrastructure in California happens to be in the highest-unemployment county in the state. That alignment — technical optimality meeting economic need — is not something that happens often. When it does, the institutions of the region are expected to recognize it and act accordingly. The county has. The courts have. The remaining obstacle is the coordinated campaign by officials and organizations whose interests don’t align with the community’s.
That campaign should not succeed. Imperial Valley’s combination of geothermal power, independent grid, industrial land, and economic need is a case that makes itself. The people blocking it are on the wrong side of both the law and the economic logic.
