Clean Cloud’s proposals in Arkansas, Arizona, Michigan, and Illinois differ in scale and setting, but they follow a recognizable pattern.
Assemble the pieces, then find a buyer. In each location, Clean Cloud has acted as a site-and-power developer rather than the eventual operator. In Arkansas, County Judge Randy Pruitt said in 2025 that Clean Cloud intended to sell the data center to a major technology company while retaining and leasing the solar farm. A year later, a potential buyer surfaced: EdgeConneX signed a letter of intent. Clean Cloud has described EdgeConneX as a possible buyer, not as the buyer in a completed sale. In Arizona, the land is part of developer Al Barbarich’s Entrata master plan, with Clean Cloud named as the project developer.
Pair the data center with power generation. Clean Cloud’s business model, adopted when reNRG Partners changed its name in September 2024, focuses on the energy demands of data centers. Both active proposals pair a data center with solar generation. In Arkansas, the solar farm would sit next to the data center under a separate company, reNRG AR 1 LLC. In Arizona, Clean Cloud plans a solar project on adjacent federal land as a secondary power source, while primary power would come from Nevada’s Mead Substation. The company has not disclosed what power source a Mahomet campus would use.
Use separate project companies. The Grant County resolutions name Sheridan Data Center LLC and reNRG AR 1 LLC, rather than Clean Cloud itself.
Start with staff before making a public proposal. Clean Cloud’s first contact is usually with local staff or officials, well before residents learned of the project. In Michigan, the company began with an email to Richmond Township’s planning department asking about local requirements. In Mahomet, Village staff signed nondisclosure agreements and spent months drafting an annexation and development agreement. Residents learned about the talks when the Village released records on Sept. 28. Grant County officials, by contrast, say they signed no NDA.
Secure land-use rights before the rules change. In Arizona, Mohave County adopted special-use permit requirements for data centers in December 2025. By then, Entrata’s team had already filed a preliminary site plan, and county staff said the project could be exempt. A project consultant told supervisors that the team wanted to reduce that risk. In Mahomet, Clean Cloud’s July redline of the draft agreement went further: no future Village ordinance could materially impair the developer’s rights or limit operation of the project as a data center.
Ask for tax relief early. In Grant County, the company’s first public move was to ask the Quorum Court for nonbinding resolutions expressing intent to negotiate payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreements for both the data center and the solar farm. The resolutions could allow up to 65% of property taxes to be forgiven for 30 years.
Lead with big numbers that tend to grow. The Arkansas project expanded from 500 to 800 megawatts, while its estimated cost rose from $5 billion–$6 billion to $8 billion–$12 billion. In Arizona, the stated figures—$12.5 billion and 1.25 gigawatts—represent what Barbarich called the project’s maximum potential, not a committed build.
Promise low water use. In Arkansas and Illinois, the pitch has focused on closed-loop cooling, which recirculates water. The Arizona plan includes a hybrid cooling and water plant that would draw from Entrata’s state groundwater allocation.
Then local rules follow. In each location, public scrutiny eventually led to new conditions. Grant County drafted six requirements tied to escalating penalties and tax incentives. Mohave County removed data centers from its economic-development goals and added the special-use permit requirement. Richmond Township paused data center projects and began developing zoning rules.
A Texas company pursuing farmland at Mahomet’s southeast edge for a proposed data center campus has spent more than a year advancing similar projects in Grant County, Arkansas; Mohave County, Arizona; and Richmond Township, Michigan. How those proposals unfolded could offer Mahomet residents an early look at what may be ahead as village officials continue negotiating with Clean Cloud Energy outside public board approval.
Documents released by the Village of Mahomet on Sept. 28 confirmed that Clean Cloud Energy’s CEO signed an NDA on Dec. 19, 2025, and several Mahomet officials signed separate copies in early January 2026, according to records released by the Village. Over the last year, Village officials, including Village Administrator Patrick Brown and Mayor Jason Tompkins, worked to draft a proposed development agreement, including an annexation agreement, for land just south of Village limits near the Norfolk Railroad, Prairieview Road, Barker Road and South Mahomet Road. The site is between 2-3 miles from Middletown Prairie Elementary.
Village officials stress that no formal proposal has been filed and the talks are exploratory.
Clean Cloud portrays itself as a developer of integrated energy campuses, handling land, permitting, fiber, water and power arrangements while working with data-center end users, utilities and regulators.
On its website, the company calls itself an energy and digital infrastructure firm that develops “integrated energy campuses” for hyperscale data centers, the giant facilities that power cloud computing and artificial intelligence. The company says it finds unused capacity on the electric grid, adds on-site power where needed, and handles land, permits, fiber, and water.
The company was founded by Emmanuel Sakellakis, a New Jersey energy executive with a background in solar development.Clean Cloud lists Raj Keswani as CEO. His professional biography describes prior work in global-macro investing and emerging-markets sales and trading. Clark Bixler, Director of Development, brings a background in the renewable sector, previously managing major pipelines and multi-gigawatt assets for green energy companies like Enel Green Power and Tradewind Energy.
Publicly identified Clean Cloud projects in Arkansas, Arizona, Michigan and Mahomet appear to remain in planning, permitting or preliminary-negotiation stages; this reporting did not identify a completed Clean Cloud-developed hyperscale data-center campus. A Clean Cloud press release claims more than 2.6 gigawatts of AI energy solutions within the company’s existing portfolio.
In Grant County, Arkansas, Clean Cloud Energy presented county officials in mid-2025 with a proposed 500-megawatt data center and 400-megawatt solar farm estimated to cost $5 billion to $6 billion. The proposal called for a 753-acre data center site beside a 3,200-acre solar development.
Clean Cloud’s Ark. plan has always had two parts. Alongside the data center, the company pitched a 400-megawatt solar farm on roughly 3,200 acres next to the data center. In Oct. 2025, Pruitt told KARK that Clean Cloud planned to sell the data center to a large tech company, but keep ownership of the solar farm and lease it. The county’s solar tax resolution, No. 2025-03, names reNRG AR1 LLC, not Clean Cloud or Sheridan Data Center LLC.
reNRG AR 1 LLC is a special-purpose renewable energy entity linked to reNRG Partners (which rebranded to Clean Cloud Energy in September 2024), formed to develop utility-scale solar generation and energy co-location solutions.
The solar resolution mirrors the data center resolution: It expresses a preliminary, nonbinding intent to negotiate a 30-year agreement under which the owner would pay 35% of the property taxes otherwise due on the project’s equipment. The Quorum Court approved the preliminary data center measure during a heated July 21, 2025, meeting, while tabling the accompanying solar farm resolution, before ultimately passing Resolution 2025-03 unanimously, 8–0, on Oct. 20, 2025.
At the Oct. 2025 meeting, one resident estimated the combined projects would cover about 4,600 acres and cost the county more than 2 million trees.
Over the following year, the data center proposal grew from 500 to 800 megawatts after the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp., with assistance from Clean Cloud, identified additional firm power capacity. The Arkansas Times said the expanded facility would use enough electricity to serve roughly 200,000 homes.
Unlike in Mahomet, Grant County officials did not sign nondisclosure agreements during the development process, according to Pruitt.
By June 2026, Grant County had established conditions for any prospective operator, including a requirement for a closed-loop, air-chilled cooling system designed to recirculate water. The county’s proposed incentive framework also tied larger tax abatements to additional payments and compliance with local conditions.
Grant County has laid out what a data center would need to provide in exchange for a property-tax break. Drawing on public survey responses, an advisory group formed by Pruitt developed six requirements for any proposed data center, including the use of closed-loop cooling. Companies that meet all six conditions could be eligible for a 20% property-tax reduction, according to the Arkansas Times.
A larger break would require a much larger payment. To be eligible for a 65% tax reduction, the company using the data center would have to make a one-time payment of nearly $57 million to the county. The funds would be distributed among local services, including schools, fire departments and nonprofit organizations. Under a 65% reduction, the company would still pay 35% of its usual property-tax bill—the same percentage outlined in the county’s preliminary resolutions.
That 35% would remain a significant source of revenue. The Arkansas Times reported that Grant County could collect an estimated $25.2 million to nearly $38 million annually, depending on the eventual size of the data center.
The agreement would also include enforcement measures. Each violation of the six conditions would trigger a $1 million penalty, while an ongoing violation could result in the tax break being revoked altogether.
In a public meeting, a nearby resident said the project would be about a half-mile from his home. In June 2026, Pruitt said, “Who would put a dollar figure on their community? We will consider this if it’s a good, clean project,” according to the Arkansas Times.
In July, County Judge Randy Pruitt publicly identified EdgeConneX as a potential developer after Clean Cloud told him the company had signed a letter of intent. Clean Cloud characterized EdgeConneX as a possible buyer, not a confirmed purchaser, for a project then estimated at $8 billion to $12 billion.
EdgeConneX, the potential buyer of the Grant County project, is a U.S.-based data center company owned since 2020 by investment funds managed by EQT, a Swedish private equity firm. In 2021, EdgeConneX acquired a minority stake in Chayora, a Hong Kong-based company that develops and operates data centers in mainland China, including facilities near Beijing and Shanghai. The size of EdgeConneX’s investment was not disclosed, and investment firm Actis remained Chayora’s largest shareholder.
Asked whether the company’s China connection posed a concern, Clean Cloud Energy official Clark Bixler told the Arkansas Times that EdgeConneX has no Chinese ownership and no Chinese funding, saying the company is financed by EQT. The Times noted that Arkansas law restricts certain foreign companies’ operations in the state and reported that it was unclear whether EdgeConneX’s investment in Chayora would trigger those restrictions.
Even if EdgeConneX buys the Arkansas project, it may not be the final user. EdgeConneX typically builds data centers and leases the space to large tech companies, and it usually doesn’t name its clients. Before EdgeConneX emerged, Clean Cloud had pointed to the biggest tech firms as likely end users. In 2025, Pruitt said Clean Cloud planned to sell the data center to a major technology company such as Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle or Meta. Clean Cloud separately named Meta, Oracle and Google as the kind of companies it was seeking. No end user has been publicly confirmed.
If the Mahomet project follows the same pattern, the company that signs the agreement with the Village may not be the company that ultimately builds or operates the data center. The draft agreement identifies Rising Edge, LLC, a Delaware-based company, as the developer—not Clean Cloud itself.
The Village’s April draft would require any future owner to remain bound by the agreement, while keeping the original developer responsible unless the Village Board approved a transfer. Clean Cloud’s July revisions would make that arrangement less restrictive: the developer could transfer the agreement without a Village Board vote to an affiliate or an “institutional purchaser acquiring the Project.” Once the purchaser agreed in writing to assume those obligations, the original developer would be released from future responsibility.
Clean Cloud’s Arkansas proposal is not the company’s only project still in development. In Mohave County, Arizona, the company is pursuing the proposed Entrata Data Center, a 776-acre campus planned beside White Hills Airport, according to AZBEX, an Arizona publication covering the construction industry.
The property is part of Entrata, a 10,000-acre master-planned community approved in 2023 and owned by developer Al Barbarich. Entrata would supply the land, while Clean Cloud would develop the project. In 2025, Barbarich’s team told Mohave County supervisors that Entrata had a contract with Clean Cloud for the site.
A conceptual site plan calls for 34 data center modules, three pads for high-voltage substations, a hybrid cooling and water plant, and nine stormwater basins. At full buildout, the project could have 1.25 gigawatts of electrical capacity and represent a $12.5 billion investment. It could also create as many as 1,200 construction jobs and 150 permanent jobs. Barbarich said those numbers reflect the project’s maximum potential scale.
Clean Cloud President Emmanuel Sakellakis told AZBEX that the primary power source would be the Mead Substation in Nevada. He said the company is working with the Western Area Power Administration to bring that electricity to the site. Clean Cloud also plans a solar project on adjoining federal land to serve as a secondary power source.
Entrata has a 100-year water supply certificate from the Arizona Department of Water Resources. Project consultant Kathy Tackett-Hicks told county supervisors that the data center would use part of that allocation, which had originally been approved for manufacturing and airport-related development. She said the project would use less water than the certificate allows. Sakellakis said construction could start in 2027 or 2028.
The proposal became more uncertain after Mohave County revised its stance on data centers in 2025. In July, the county removed data centers from its economic-development objectives. Then, on Dec. 1, the Board of Supervisors began requiring data centers in industrial and airport districts to obtain special-use permits and provide their own power and water.
Mohave County Development Services Director Scott Holtry said Entrata may be exempt because it had already filed a preliminary site plan. Project representatives said they believed the new standards might not apply. But as of AZBEX’s December 2025 report, the county had not issued a final decision.
That question could make the project’s electricity plan important. During a 2025 presentation, the project consultant told supervisors that the data center would provide its own power and water instead of relying on the existing electrical grid or municipal utilities. Sakellakis later described a different arrangement: most electricity would arrive through the regional grid from Nevada, while the nearby solar project would function as a secondary source. It remains unclear whether electricity transmitted from the Mead Substation would meet the county’s requirement that data centers supply their own power.
The Arizona proposal also presents questions about water use. The conceptual plan includes a hybrid cooling and water plant, yet Clean Cloud CEO Raj Keswani said in Mahomet that the company uses closed-loop, air-chilled cooling systems that require no water. AZBEX did not describe how the Entrata cooling system would operate or estimate its water use.
As with the Arkansas proposal, the Entrata project includes a solar element. Publicly available information suggests, however, that solar would have a smaller and less-defined role in Arizona, supplementing electricity delivered from Nevada rather than acting as the project’s primary power source.
A month after Mahomet staff signed nondisclosure agreements, Clean Cloud was knocking on another door. On Jan. 9, 2026, Leslie Farmer, the company’s director of environmental and permitting, emailed the planning department of Richmond Township in Macomb County, Michigan, a rural community of about 3,500 people north of Detroit. Farmer wrote that Clean Cloud was interested in locating one of its data centers in the township and asked for a 30-minute introductory call to learn the township’s requirements and whether it was interested in hosting a site. Development Director Clark Bixler was copied on the message. Township planning staff offered a virtual meeting for Jan. 22, which Farmer accepted, according to the emails.
The inquiry never developed into a formal proposal, and the project is now on hold after a moratorium on data centers. Meanwhile, the township has drafted zoning rules for such facilities.
A copy of the proposed amendments reviewed for this story would allow data centers only in light and heavy industrial districts, and only with special land use approval. Projects would need parcels of at least 20 acres. Buildings and equipment would have to sit at least 500 feet from residential districts, behind a landscaped buffer at least 100 feet wide next to residential districts and 50 feet wide elsewhere, and inside an 8- to 12-foot security fence.
The proposed rules would limit operating noise to 45 decibels at any property line. Developers would have to show a project would not hurt grid reliability or raise electricity costs for other customers, and provide documentation from the utility confirming there is enough capacity to serve it.
Water-based cooling systems would have to use closed-loop or recycled water. Developers would need a water use plan and evidence that the facility would not harm nearby wells or groundwater. They would also have to complete environmental, traffic, noise, fiscal and emergency-response studies, and obtain a property value appraisal from a licensed appraiser.
The draft would require a decommissioning plan backed by a financial guarantee covering the full estimated cost of removal, including a contingency of at least 15%. A facility that stops operating for 12 straight months would be considered abandoned. The owner would then have 90 days to begin removal and a year to finish it, or the township could do the work itself and draw on the guarantee. Those obligations would bind future owners. Operators would also have to file annual reports on electricity use, water consumption, noise compliance and any emergencies.
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