Golden Valley Technology Hub Project by California Resources Corporation

The proposed project Golden Valley Technology Hub Project would involve the construction and operation of a 395,500 square-foot, 275-megawatt (MW) data center at the Elk Hills Oil Field (EHOF) in Kern County, California. The proposed Project would include development of data center building and associated infrastructure on an approximately 82-acre site that is currently used as an oil field service and contractor storage yard. The existing 550-MW Elk Hills Power Plant (EHPP) would be the primary source of electricity for the data center and in the case of an outage, backup power would be supplied through an existing interconnection with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). Additionally, an approximately 180-MW battery energy storage system would be installed at the data center site to balance electrical loads. A redundant emergency backup generation system consisting of fifteen (15) 2.5-MW diesel generators would also be located at the data center site to provide power to critical IT systems during the unlikely event of outages of both the EHPP and PG&E grid. In addition to the data center site, the proposed project includes construction of ancillary infrastructure to support the data center’s operation including electrical transmission lines, water pipelines, and fiber optic lines. Except for the fiber optic lines, the entirety of the project would be contained within the EHOF. The proposed project includes land-use entitlement requests for a Zone Classification Change, Conditional Use Permits, a Zone Variance, and a Tentative Parcel Map from the Kem County Planning & Natural Resources Department.