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Facing an influx of data from automated tolling, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is adopting a new strategy to keep meeting its sustainability goals: building its own data centers, complete with built-in energy sources.
Inside the PA Turnpike’s Western Regional Office (WRO) in New Stanton — about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh — a new 800-square-foot data center is processing and storing new data created by turnpike travelers. And starting in June, that data center, along with the entire regional office, will be powered by an on-site solar microgrid.
With data center electric grid strain a hot topic across the country, this project is an opportunity for the PA Turnpike to get ahead of the curve, according to Matt Ceroni, the western regional facilities manager for the PA Turnpike.
“All these data centers are being approved by the government, but they have to provide their own power,” Ceroni told Technical.ly, referencing a recent pledge some tech companies signed at President Donald Trump’s request, “so they’re going to be in the same boat that we are because, again, the grid is not set up to take that kind of hit.”
It’s also a project that will pay for itself. The WRO and the internal data center will only need about 20% of the power produced by the microgrid, according to PA Turnpike officials. The additional energy will be sold to the PA power grid, allowing the agency to make back its project investment in about five to six years, Ceroni estimated.
That same model is already working about five miles away at the PA Turnpike’s Greensburg Maintenance Facility, where a similar microgrid with solar arrays and a backup natural gas generator is located, according to Crispin Havener, the agency’s assistant press secretary.
Since the Greensburg solar array became operational in 2021, the agency has saved an estimated $400,000 a year by selling excess power back to the grid, Havener said.
These projects are part of the agency’s sustainability goals, according to Havener. For four years running, the PA Turnpike has earned a “perfect score” from Pennsylvania’s GreenGov Council, which evaluates state agencies annually to track progress toward the commonwealth’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050.
“To be able to harness the sun — use clean power — to power the rack systems, and to have that extra layer of added stability for the electrical grid system, that was the main driver for us,” Ceroni said.
For years, the WRO had a data center the size of a closet, according to April Rothermel, the PA Turnpike’s assistant chief technology officer of security and infrastructure.
But now, the agency’s new tech projects have exploded the need for more data storage and cybersecurity.
In 2020, the PA Turnpike launched all-electric tolling. Instead of drivers stopping at a station, a sensor detects a driver’s E-ZPass to auto-pay or a camera will capture an image of their license plate to bill them by mail later.
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Now, the agency is working on open road tolling, which is a similar cashless, free-flowing tolling system, but this time it removes traditional toll booths entirely. Drivers will no longer need to slow down to be billed electronically, and instead can drive at highway speeds under overhead structures called gantries that track the payments.
The PA Turnpike has already launched open road tolling in the eastern part of the state, but it’s continuing to lay a 550-mile fiber optic network to support this new initiative statewide by 2027, and that comes with new considerations, according to Rothermel.
“The number of pictures taken with the new open road tolling is much more than the old traditional tolling,” Rothermel told Technical.ly, “so that all takes data and a robust network.”
The PA Turnpike — which is operated by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and funded by tolls — officially opened for business in 1940. Today, more than 500,000 travelers use it daily, according to the agency.
“Being a leader in emerging technology is definitely part of our culture,” Rothemel said.
The PA Turnpike has long partnered with local universities to develop new transportation tech, according to Kevin Shelleby, the WRO’s network engineer.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission recently announced it was partnering with Penn State, Carnegie Mellon University and some other organizations to launch PennSTART, a new testing facility near Pittsburgh for autonomous vehicles.
Over at the University of Pittsburgh, the agency is funding research projects aimed at bettering PA roads.
Statewide, the turnpike has been preparing for a world with more electric vehicles for over a decade.
“We’re looking to add 80 new [EV charging] stations at all 17 of our service plazas across the state,” assistant press secretary Havener said. “We’re hoping to have one, at least, set up at every [plaza] by the end of next year.”
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