Data Center Reference Model · VLAS

Build the data center the town would miss

This is a reference model for building AI-compute data centers in balance with nature and communities — the design brief, the stewardship catalog, the planner, and the covenant. Across 49 states and four continents, communities are withdrawing consent from the extractive way. This is not the case against data centers. It is the case for building them differently.

Pick a vantage point — the model reframes its outputs for you, and the Place Planner remembers your choice.

Movement 1 · Problem & Potential

Same list. Same megawatts. Nothing changed but what got asked first.

What a data center brings a town

The same list, read twice

Heat, water, power, capital, compute. Everyone reads that list as the cost of hosting a data center. It is also the list of everything one could give back. Not a different list — the same one, read a second time.

Its heat

Read as cost

Thermal pollution, dumped into the air.

Read as potential

Warmth for 2,000 homes — Hamina gives ~80% of the town's district heat, free.

~80%

Its water

Read as cost

~1.36M litres a day, gone from your basin.

~1.36M L/day

Read as potential

The first real investment your watershed ever got — same-basin, measured, public.

Its power

Read as cost

Bills rise — $9.3B onto ratepayers in one year.

$9.3B

Read as potential

Grid resilience the town keeps — microgrid, backup capacity, demand response.

Its capital

Read as cost

$1.94B/yr in breaks, ~1,610 jobs, value flows out.

$1.94B/yr

Read as potential

The largest investment the community will ever see — Byron, pop. <3,000, held $25M over 20 years.

$25M / 20yr

Its compute

Read as cost

A fenced shed, ~50 jobs, half contractors.

~50 jobs

Read as potential

The city's own AI capacity — hospital, college, emergency modelling.

The whole model in one sentence

Same list. Same megawatts. Same company. Nothing changed but what got asked first — and who was in the room when it did.

The difference isn't the technology. It's what got asked first. So how did we get here?

Movement 2 · How We Got Here

The inheritance — not an indictment. The same numbers, read as reckoning.

The frame

A sequence that made sense once

Data centers exist because people needed them. They got built the only way anyone knew: find power, find cheap land, fix the design, commit the capital — then tell the town. That sequence made sense once, in a world with room to spare.

The world ran out of room, and the sequence didn't change. Nobody chose extraction. Extraction is what you get when the place has no voice until the plan is finished — a sequencing failure, easier to push onto the next generation than to reopen a finished plan.

The facts, as facts — not as accusation

These are the numbers everyone already knows. Read them not as an indictment but as an inheritance — the record of good people following a logic that had stopped serving life.

The demand

Read as cost

Data-center electricity ran ~415 TWh in 2024 — about 3% of world electricity — and is projected to reach ~945 TWh by 2030.

~415 → ~945 TWh

Read as potential

Real demand, honestly stated: the need is not the problem. The sequence is.

The power bills

Read as cost

$9.3B onto ratepayers in one year; data centers drove about 63% of PJM's 2025/26 capacity-price jump.

$9.3B

Read as potential

The same load, planned with the grid instead of around it, is resilience the town keeps.

The jobs and breaks

Read as cost

Virginia forgoes about $1.94B a year under current incentives for roughly 1,610 jobs — over $1.2M per job.

$1.94B/yr

Read as potential

The same capital, counted across five capitals, is the largest investment a community will ever host.

The water

Read as cost

In Uruguay, ~7.6M litres a day during the worst drought in 70+ years — “No es sequía, es saqueo”, it's not drought, it's pillage.

~7.6M L/day

Read as potential

The same withdrawal, replenished in the basin it came from, is the first real investment a watershed ever got.

The honest read

These are places where good people followed a logic that had stopped serving life — because the alternative wasn't visible, and the cost lands on someone who isn't in the room yet.

And the practical truth

Extraction isn't just wrong — it's slow, expensive, and increasingly un-buildable. Projects are blocked, litigated, stalled at interconnect. Permission, not power, is now the critical path.

This is what we inherited. It is not what we're stuck with.

The thesis

Work with the community, and consent is earned

A data center is one of the most concentrated flows of energy, water, capital, and capability a community will ever host. Built with the place, every one of those flows can run into the place instead of out of it. The Five Capitals name what it could bring to the table:

Natural

Restored habitat and watershed stewardship on and around the site; zero-water cooling and same-basin replenishment where water is contested.

Covenanted community benefits with teeth — citizen-governed funds, public dashboards, no-NDA transparency — and the trust they compound.

Human

Registered apprenticeships, permanent operations careers, and education compute for local students — livelihoods, not just construction traffic.

Built

Waste heat delivered to homes and greenhouses, municipal fiber, grid resilience — facility infrastructure that serves the place, not only the racks.

Financial

Durable host revenue at full freight — payments above statutory minimums, bill protection for neighbors, clawback-secured commitments.

Each of these is drawn from the stewardship catalog — most with named operating precedents. The sized versions live in Story of Place and the Place Planner.

The pressure

The demand is real — and so is the strain

None of these numbers are in dispute. They come from the IEA, the US Department of Energy, national statistics offices, and the independent market monitor for the largest grid in North America.

US data-center electricity, measured 2014–2024 → projected 2028, TWh

Solid line: DOE/LBNL measured estimates. Shaded fan: the published 2028 scenario range; “ref” is the 2025-update reference case.

415 → 945 TWh — Global data-center electricity, 2024 → 2030 (~3% of global demand)
21% — Share of Ireland's metered electricity, 2023
24% — Share of Dominion's Virginia electricity sales
$28.92 → $333.44 — PJM capacity price, per MW-day (2025/26 auction)
~63% — Share of the PJM capacity-price increase attributed to data centers (~$9.3B)

Where global electricity demand growth comes from, 2024–2030, TWh

…yet in the US, data centres account for roughly half of ALL demand growth. Globally modest, locally decisive — which is why the siting decision is where the whole question lives.

What powers data centers — global generation mix, 2024

The PJM figure is the independent market monitor’s estimate of the data-center share of the capacity-price increase; its attribution rests partly on load forecasts. That hedge stays attached to the number everywhere it appears.

What happens without consent

Skip the community, and the community answers

The same record reads differently depending on your seat. Here is what it means to each:

If you build them — CEO, developer

Your siting contest now starts with the room against you. ~71% local-opposition sentiment in surveyed contests.
Blocked-or-delayed is main-case risk, not tail risk. Projects blocked, litigated, or stalled at interconnect — capital carried with no scheduled end.
There is no quiet geography left to slip into. 833 organized opposition groups across 49 states — and they share playbooks.

Reported observatory figures for Q1 2026 — tracked, not audited.

If you host one — mayor, community

The jobs headline is smaller than the ribbon-cutting. A typical facility runs on ~50 operations FTEs — about half of them contractors.
The default incentive deal can cost more than it returns. Virginia forgoes ~$1.94B a year under current data-center incentives.
Your water becomes the fight if it is not the covenant. From Chile to Querétaro: “No es sequía, es saqueo” — “it is not drought, it is plunder” — what communities say when water leaves and nothing returns.

Read both columns together and the conclusion is the same from either seat: consent, covenanted early, is the cheapest thing a project will ever buy — and the only thing on this page that removes risk for both sides at once.

Movement 3 · Where We Want To Go

We can't tell you your vision. We can show you that places found theirs.

A shared vision

Places found their potential — and it was theirs, not handed down

The future is not RDC's vision handed to a town. It is a vision the town helps author. We can't tell you what yours is. We can show you that other places discovered theirs — and that what they discovered travels.

Hamina, Finland

Google's waste heat gives up to ~80% of the town's district heat, free — about 40 GWh a year, warmth for ~2,000 homes.

~80% / 2,000 homes

Odense, Denmark

Meta's recovered heat feeds the district network — capacity expanded toward heat for 6,900–11,000 homes.

6,900–11,000 homes

Stockholm, Sweden

The utility pays for the waste heat and gives free cooling in exchange — recovered data-center heat warms tens of thousands of apartments.

~30,000 apartments

Boden, Sweden

About 1 MW of waste heat warms a 10,000 m² greenhouse; a regional vegetable self-sufficiency pilot lifted +~8%.

+~8% (pilot)

Byron, NY

A town of fewer than 3,000 negotiated a reported ~$25M over 20 years from a 280 MW facility.

~$25M / 20yr

Patterns repeat — that's why these travel

Story of Place surfaces a place's patterns; patterns recur across places. Hamina is not a story to borrow — it's a pattern living somewhere, and the pattern is what travels. The pattern library is an instrument of Story of Place, not an extension of it. Your place will have its own instance of the pattern. We can't tell you what yours is; we can show you the pattern is real.

Why this feels bigger than jobs and tax base

Because prosperity was never one number. It's five — and the town was only ever shown one. This is the one place Five Capitals enters, not as a framework, but as the answer to the question you were already asking.

Natural

The living systems of the place — water, soil, habitat, species, climate function. Same-basin water replenishment, restored habitat, waste heat that displaces fossil heating. [V — VLAS §S2.1.1]

Human

The capacities of people — skills, health, knowledge, livelihoods. Registered apprenticeships, permanent operations careers, education compute for local students. [V — VLAS §S2.1.1]

Trust, relationships, institutions, and the community's power to shape its future. A standing board with decision rights, a public covenant registry, no-NDA transparency. [V — VLAS §S2.1.1]

Built

Physical and energy infrastructure serving the place, not only the facility. District-heat networks, municipal fiber, a community microgrid, a hosted city digital twin. [V — VLAS §S2.1.1]

Financial

Durable economic value held by and flowing to the community. Above-statutory host payments, ratepayer cost-shift shields, a governed community benefit fund. [V — VLAS §S2.1.1]

The question that carries the rest of the site

What would your town be, if the place got asked first?

Five Capitals, in the round

Turn the wheel — one heat offtake moves four capitals

Prosperity was never one number. Explore each capital and the flows it names — the same five the model counts everywhere else.

Natural capital

the living systems of the place: water, soil, habitat, species, climate function.

Example flowsSame-basin water replenishment, restored habitat acreage, waste heat that displaces fossil heating.

Movement 5 · How It Works

The whole arc, start to end — customer-named, gated, with the drops shown.

The process

By now the vocabulary is load-bearing

Every stage below is a gate the model composed for a data center — what happens, who acts, and the gate that must clear to advance. Two stages are dropped, on purpose, and each drop is a selling point.

Read the region

The watershed, grid, habitat, and climate band are read at regional scale before any siting is fixed. — The design team and the place's ecologists.

Gate: A regional baseline is captured and the climate band is set.

Bring everyone to the table

Everyone who shares the place — including non-human interests — is convened, and community power is mapped. — The community, local government, and the developer's early team.

Gate: All stakeholders are engaged and community power is mapped.

Earn consent

Free, prior, informed consent is sought in public. Without it, nothing proceeds. — The community, and Indigenous rights-holders where triggered.

Gate: Consent is verified — the hard floor no project passes without.

Confirm the site

The developer's control of the site is evidenced — the town knows exactly what land is in play. — The developer and the municipality.

Gate: Site control is evidenced.

Sign the first covenant

Owners, community, and governance align on a mission-driven covenant — the first, not the final one. — Owners, the community, and local governance.

Gate: The alignment covenant is agreed.

Draw out the story of place

The place's vocation — its patterns, stories, evolutionary potential — is brought to light and accepted by the community, not delivered to it. — The community and the Story-of-Place facilitators.

Gate: The community recognizes its own story and accepts it.

Count all five capitals

The measured starting point per capital is taken — the same transects that will be walked again to prove the gains. — Independent baseline surveyors.

Gate: A five-capitals baseline is captured. No baseline, no proof of healing, ever.

Co-discover the potential

An emergent vision reflecting the collective soul of the community is articulated; conflicts are named openly, not hidden. — The community and the design team, together.

Gate: The emergent vision is articulated and conflicts are registered.

Find the pathway to balance

A needs assessment or research test sets a pathway toward balance and the target rung for this place. — The community (needs) or the model (research), against the place's data.

Gate: The pathway is accepted and the target rung is set.

No pre-build stewardship enterprise

This is not a stewardable-land-first project, so there is no pre-build stewardship enterprise stage. — —

Gate: Not applicable to this model.

Dropped — Not a stewardable-land-first project: the developer's site generates no pre-build stewardship revenue. (This is also why the DC model has no enterprise models.)

Compose the plan

The portfolio is composed from the pattern library, fitted to the place, toward the target rung. What-ifs are explored separately from the plan of record. — The design and engineering team with community advisors holding decision rights.

Gate: The plan covers all five capitals, meets the target rung, and is peer-reviewed.

Wait until nature is ready

Capital does not deploy and build does not begin until the place can hold it. — The place's ecologists and the readiness board.

Gate: Development only begins when nature is ready.

Converge on the covenant

All parties meet at one enforceable covenant — every term a number, a measurement, and a consequence. This is the mutual decision point no single party passes alone. — The mayor's non-negotiables, the builder's permission path, and the operator's terms, together.

Gate: The covenant is executed with numeric terms, enforcement, and clawbacks; permits are secured.

No funding gate

You arrive with the plan and the capital, so there is no “secure the funding” stage to clear. — —

Gate: Not applicable to this model.

Dropped — The developer arrives with a plan and the capital. There is no “secure the funding” arc.

Build to the covenant

The facility is built to the covenanted spec — nurturing living systems, not just constructing buildings. — The construction team, under the covenant's terms.

Gate: Built to the covenanted spec.

Turn the benefits on

The committed benefits come online — where a promise becomes a flow. — The operator and the community.

Gate: Occupancy plus committed benefits flowing, not merely contracted.

Operate in the open

The place lives with the project; the advisory board is active, benefits flow, and transparency obligations run. — The operator, the citizen board, and the whole place.

Gate: Governance uptime and transparency obligations are met.

Measure the outcomes

Outputs become outcomes, measured against the baseline — not asserted. — The operator and independent measurers.

Gate: Measurement records exist against the original baseline.

Verify independently

The same transects walked at the start are walked again, independently. The land has to prove it healed. — Independent verifiers.

Gate: The gains are verified against the baseline within the honest thresholds.

Recognize the living asset

The land proves it healed and a Verified Living Asset is recognized; permanence is secured. — The registry and the verifiers.

Gate: Recognized — and only when the outcome is contracted or offtaken.

Return the value locally

Surplus flows back to land stewards, local trusts, and the platform, funding the next cycle. — The community trust and the operator.

Gate: At least a 10% community dividend is distributed locally, before investor allocation.

Co-evolve

Engage, measure, refine, and co-evolve — the cycle restarts, building capacity each turn. — The whole place, iteratively.

Gate: Adaptation is running and the next cycle is scoped.

Hold the gains

The gains are held where they are grown; stewardship endures beyond any single owner. — The registry and the local trust.

Gate: Permanence is durable through ownership change.

Added for a data center

Same-basin replenishment at named gauges. Out-of-basin offsets don't count; miss two consecutive quarters and abatement suspends until cured. Heat offtake to the town commissioned (climate-permitting). No NDAs on environmental or financial data. Withdrawal volumes, energy draw, incidents, and abatement performance are public; a decision made without board sign-off is void as to the abatement.

An honest first

Story of Place has run across 200+ projects on six continents, peer-reviewed — and never yet applied to a data center. An honest first is worth more than a borrowed track record.

The arc, stage by stage

Click any stage — what happens, who acts, the gate to advance

Two stages are dropped, on purpose. A data center arrives with its plan and its capital, so there is no funding gate and no pre-build stewardship enterprise — each drop is a selling point, not a gap.

Alignment

Read the region

The watershed, grid, habitat, and climate band are read at regional scale before any siting is fixed.

Who acts: The design team and the place's ecologists.
Gate to advance: A regional baseline is captured and the climate band is set.

Both futures are on the table in every siting decision. This model exists so a place can choose the first one — and hold it with covenants, not promises. Build the plan for your own town.

The pages that follow move from thesis to method: how a place writes the design brief, how every strand of a siting decision connects to every other, the hundred-plus stewardship interventions the story of place selects from, and the planner that answers the only question that matters — would the town miss it if it left?