The Department of Energy announced on 29 July that it had selected Brookfield and NextEra Energy to develop a data centre campus on the 3,556-acre DOE Paducah Site in McCracken County, western Kentucky — the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a uranium enrichment facility that ceased operating in 2013. Brookfield leases the land and operates the campus; NextEra owns and runs the power.
Three different gigawatt figures
They are not interchangeable. Compute load at full build is more than 1.2 GW. Utility capacity is up to 1.8 GW. Dedicated generation is up to 4.6 GW — up to 2 GW of new grid-connected natural gas plus up to 2.6 GW of battery storage. Surplus power goes to the regional grid.
Not a nuclear project
Several outlets headlined a "nuclear site," which readers will misread. This was an enrichment plant; the generation is gas and batteries. NextEra is evaluating small modular reactors separately, and they form no part of this arrangement.
What has actually been agreed
Selection, and nothing else. The announcement is explicitly subject to negotiation and execution of definitive documentation, and the power service agreement requires Kentucky Public Service Commission approval. No hyperscaler tenant is named. No construction has begun. The $100 billion is a stated investment intention — Brookfield chief executive Bruce Flatt described it as "the seed" of a $100 billion AI infrastructure plan, not money committed to this campus.
Who carries the risk
Local utilities Big Rivers Electric, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative and Paducah Power System are involved, and the parties signed a Ratepayer Protection Pledge shielding households and small businesses from costs. Jobs are put at about 8,000 during construction and 600 permanent.