The hardware behind the future


CyrusOne Pairs 200 MW Fort Worth Campus With Eolian Battery Site to Cut Time to Power

DFW7 will draw its first phases of power through the existing substation at a 100 MW battery storage site that has run in ERCOT since 2021, with capacity deliveries slated to begin in 2026.

CyrusOne Pairs 200 MW Fort Worth Campus With Eolian Battery Site to Cut Time to Power

CyrusOne and battery storage operator Eolian have announced a joint infrastructure arrangement for DFW7, a 200 megawatt data center campus under construction in Fort Worth, Texas, that routes the site's early power needs through high-voltage transmission and substation capacity that already exists next door. The companies say the structure lets CyrusOne begin delivering capacity to hyperscale and enterprise customers in 2026.

The adjacent asset is Chisholm Grid, a 100 megawatt battery energy storage system seven miles northwest of downtown Fort Worth that entered commercial operation in the ERCOT market in 2021. According to the release, Eolian identified the opportunity in 2023, and the arrangement allowed CyrusOne to break ground in April 2025 rather than wait on a new interconnection.

"Our customers' continued growth drives demand for new capacity. Leveraging the existing infrastructure at the Fort Worth campus enables CyrusOne to deliver large-scale capacity to customers beginning in 2026," said Eric Schwartz, chief executive officer of CyrusOne. What the release does not disclose is as relevant to a buyer as what it does: no anchor tenant is named, no contract value is given, and the phasing beyond the initial deliveries is not specified.

Under the transaction, Eolian will modernize and upgrade the Chisholm Grid battery system, which the companies describe as one of Texas' first utility-scale installations of its kind, while the existing grid infrastructure supplies energy to the initial phases of the campus. "By developing flexible capacity resources at highly networked grid locations, we can enable hyperscale growth without duplicating facilities, expanding transmission, or utilizing additional industrial real estate," said Aaron Zubaty, chief executive officer of Eolian.

Eolian operates battery storage projects across the United States and is owned by its employees and by funds managed by Global Infrastructure Partners, the BlackRock infrastructure arm. CyrusOne, headquartered in Dallas, operates more than 55 data centers across the United States, Europe, and Japan and sells build-to-suit, colocation, and interconnection capacity to hyperscale and enterprise customers.

The approach differs from the standard playbook for large Texas campuses, where an operator acquires land and then queues for a new or expanded grid connection. Here the connection, the substation, and an operating storage asset predate the data center, and the release positions the model as repeatable: co-locating digital infrastructure at existing electrical grid infrastructure rather than building both from scratch. The claim worth testing over time is the schedule; the company's own forward-looking statement notes that construction timelines and regulatory approvals could still move actual delivery dates.

For infrastructure buyers evaluating Dallas-Fort Worth capacity, DFW7 adds an option whose 2026 delivery schedule depends on construction progress rather than on a transmission build or an interconnection queue. Engineers weighing site risk should note that the initial phases lean on grid capacity shared with an operating battery site, so the questions to put to CyrusOne are how the 200 megawatts phase in and what backs the power supply as later phases outgrow the existing connection.

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