Brookfield and NextEra Partner on $100 Billion Gigawatt-Scale Data Center Project
Brookfield and NextEra Energy have partnered to invest over $100 billion in building a massive 1.8GW data center campus in western Kentucky. The project, slated for completion by 2031, will be built on a former uranium enrichment site and will include its own 2GW natural gas plant and 2.6GW battery storage system. This project highlights the unprecedented energy demands of modern AI and cloud computing, pushing developers to build gigawatt-scale campuses with dedicated, on-site power generation and storage. It also demonstrates a growing trend of repurposing legacy industrial sites for high-tech infrastructure. The campus will feature a 2.6GW Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) to manage power grid stability and backup, alongside a 2GW natural gas plant to ensure continuous power. The construction phase is expected to create 8,000 jobs, followed by 600 permanent positions once operational.
## BACKGROUND
Gigawatt-scale data centers represent a massive leap in size, consuming as much electricity as major metropolitan areas to power advanced AI workloads. To support these facilities without straining the public grid, developers increasingly rely on Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and dedicated power plants to ensure reliability and grid stability.