KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. He learned about this project through his beat, covering Independence City Council. Share your story idea with Tod.
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AI has become big business and Independence officials are charged up about a new multi-faceted, multi-phase project coming to the city.
It involves a new privately built and financed power plant, which will supply up to 800 megawatts to a proposed massive data center operated by a Dutch technology company that city officials believe will catalyze what it views as much-needed industrial investment in the NorthPoint Development’s EastGate Commerce Center.
“Development breeds development in a lot of cases,” Independence Assistant City Manager Charlie Dissell said. “Now that we are starting to have more development in the EastGate Commerce Center, and this being a big project, I think other people will start to look at it seriously.”
The Independence City Council unanimously approved a plan Dec. 1 for Independence Power Partners, a Delaware-based company backed by Exigent Energy and United Energy Trading, to develop a new power station on 91 acres at the retired Blue Valley Power Plant site at 21500 E. Truman Road.
Phase 1 of construction, which is expected to begin next year, would construct a 15-turbine. natural-gas-fueled power station capable of generating 225 megawatts, while Phase 2 would build a “state-of-the-art natural gas turbine, a heat recovery steam generator, a steam turbine, two generators” that could generate as much as 800 megawatts, according to an ordinance authorizing the development agreement.
Independence Power Partners will assume liability for the $2 billion in industrial revenue bonds issued for funding the project.
The city of Independence has negotiated a purchase agreement with Independence Power Partners via its city-owned facility, Independence Power and Light, to buy power.
It has a separate agreement with Nebius, an AI technology company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, to buy that power from IPL.
Nebius closed on a deal Dec. 5 with NorthPoint to buy 398 acres of land located roughly northwest of Missouri 78 and Little Blue Parkway. It plans to build a 2.5-million-square-foot data center across eight to 10 buildings at the site.
Data-center construction should also begin early next year, though that portion of the project has yet to receive the Independence City Council’s blessing.
Nebius, which does business with customers like Microsoft and Meta, already has some data-center space in Kansas City, co-locating with Patmos in the former Kansas City Star printing press.
It also operates data centers across Europe and has a co-location in New Jersey with DataOne, but the Independence location would be Nebius’ first data center it owns and operates.
Construction will take three to five years, with the full build out for the power station and data center expected to wrap up in 2030 or 2031.
Nebius plans to conduct an open house Jan. 12 in Independence. The Independence City Planning Commission meets Jan. 13 with the expectation that the data-center project will appear Jan. 20 on the full City Council docket.
Nebius is moving fast to bring capacity online globally, and as part of this we are exploring building a state-of-the-art AI factory in Independence. While we're still evaluating the site, Independence is a prime location and we look forward to continue working collaboratively with the City and community on advancing the project.
We see potential for Independence to play an important role in the AI age. Community engagement, and efficient and sustainable data-center design are important for us - we know it's a privilege to build and operate in communities and want our work to be a partnership that can bring widespread benefits.
The power plant was key to making the Nebius investment happen.
“There have been a lot of projects that we have put our name in the hat for down here in the valley, and we've simply missed out on them just because we did not have the power availability to power their facilities,” Dissell said.
That will change beginning next year, but Independence residents understandably have expressed concern in online discussion about the project, including the environmental impacts.
Dissell said city officials shared that concern “from the start,” but they believe an efficient natural-gas fueled power plant and closed-loop water cooling system will keep environmental impacts to a minimum.
North Point had already cleared and leveled the proposed data-center site and the city’s Courtney Bend Water Treatment Plant already has enough excess capacity — 20 million gallons on average — for the project, according to Dissell.
“There's not going to be any concerns on the water that is going to be used on this, on what we're able to provide to our citizens,” said Dissell, who noted that Independence uses roughly 28 million gallons on an average day.
He also assured KSHB 41 that the new power plant won’t increase bills for existing residential IPL customers, another concern the public has expressed.
Early in the data-center boom, Dissell explained, some cities locked themselves into fixed-payment plans to provide power, which turned into bad deals as costs rose, but Independence already has negotiated deals in place for IPL to serve as a pass through from the private power company to Nebius.
Residential customers make up 90% of IPL's base and use 50% of the power generated, but that will flip to 80% industrial use when Nebius' facility is operational.
The city has purchase agreements with Independence Power Partners and a sales agreement with the Dutch AI company, and Dissell said the PILOT fees from the project will substantially bolster the citywide budget.
“We have done a really good job of securing that power and passing those costs through directly to the company, so it will not affect our rate payers,” Dissell said. “... Nebius would still be responsible for paying for the power that we are generating, irregardless if they're taking it or not.”
Nebius said in addition to construction jobs, the project will support 125 full-time positions. A company spokesperson told me those would be on-site IT and technology positions along with software engineers.
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