The Vineland planning board voted 8 to 1 to approve the site plan for the second phase of a 300 megawatt data center that DataOne, a subsidiary of Nebius Group, is building in the South Jersey city under a $17 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure agreement with Microsoft, WHYY reports. Phase one is already under construction, and commissioning is expected later in 2026.
Under the approved plan, the campus generates its own electricity instead of waiting on a utility interconnection. Bloom Energy fuel cells will convert natural gas from an existing South Jersey Gas pipeline, supported by an on site tank storing 1.5 million gallons of liquefied natural gas. WHYY reports the installation would be Bloom Energy's largest single site fuel cell project to date.
Approval did not come quietly. The hearing ran six hours in front of a couple hundred residents, dozens of whom asked the board to vote no, and nobody spoke in favor during public comment. Board member John Casadia cast the lone dissenting vote and called for a "thorough investigation" of environmental impacts.
Behind the meter generation is the load bearing choice in this design. Grid interconnection requests in many markets sit in queues measured in years; a gas pipeline that already exists does not. The cost side is also concrete: WHYY cites an estimate that the facility's emissions would exceed 2 billion pounds of carbon dioxide annually, a figure opponents raised repeatedly during the hearing.
Water follows a similar pattern. The campus plans roughly 8 million gallons a year from the city supply, feeding a misting spray that assists more than 400 cooling fans. Much of the misting water evaporates, with partial reuse planned.
Residents' objections centered on LNG safety, carbon emissions, water usage and transparency. "It is truly unfortunate that our local government officials have made the decision to allow a single corporation free reign over our resources," Nichole Gardner, co chair of the group Sustain SJ, said at the hearing, according to WHYY. The vote drew boos from the audience.
For operators weighing similar sites, the pattern on display is the trade itself: on site generation buys schedule certainty and moves the decisive fight from the utility commission to a local planning board, where opposition is organized, present and on the record.
Vineland shows behind the meter gas generation clearing a local board while grid connected projects elsewhere wait in interconnection queues, and it shows the political cost of that speed. Operators comparing the two routes now have a concrete case for what each demands: fuel logistics and emissions scrutiny on one side, queue time on the other.
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