Land Clearing as a Development Proxy An interesting statistic emerging from the 136 GW of identified land-clearing projects: only one project—Uvalde Solar (150 MW)—has been cancelled to date. This suggests that land clearing is a highly reliable signal that a project will eventually reach completion.
However, the duration between land clearing and the first structure can be vast. A query via our agent—“For power generation, compare the time from land clearing to first structure: which technology is faster? Is there a specific region that is slower? How many projects are cancelled after land clearing versus after the first structure?”—produced the following dashboard:
The results are intuitive: battery storage remains the fastest technology to move from land clearing to construction due to its smaller physical footprint.
Vulcan Drone Report: Vineland Data Center
Executive Summary This Monday, we deployed a thermal drone to the Vineland Data Center. Based on industry press releases and punditry the facility was supposed to be online late 2025. We suspected the facility was behind schedule from those forecasts. Our internal modeling set the earliest possible online date as December 24, 2025; any date prior to that would have required a "speed build" seen only by the likes of xAI/SpaceX.
Thermal imagery provides ground-truth verification: as of March 9, 2026, neither DC01 nor DC02 shows thermal signatures consistent with an energized facility. While DC01 appears physically complete, it is not yet producing heat. DC02 remains in early-stage construction.
|
Unit |
Capacity |
Reported Status |
Reported Startup |
Vulcan Construction Status |
Thermal Review (3/9/26) |
|
DC01 |
50 MW |
Operational |
10/2025 |
Confirmed (not yet completed) |
Not Operational |
|
DC02 |
50 MW |
Operational |
2/2026 |
Identified |
Under Construction |
|
DC03 |
50 MW |
Under Construction |
1/29/2027 |
None |
— |
|
DC04–DC06 |
150 MW |
Planned |
2027–2029 |
None |
— |
Drone imagery captured on 3/9/2026 shows the Vineland Data Center campus in two distinct phases of development. Unit DC01 (50 MW), the primary completed structure, occupies the southern portion of the site with rooftop cooling infrastructure fully installed. Unit DC02 (50 MW) is under active construction immediately to the north, with structural steel framing and early-stage buildout underway.
Site overview – aerial showing DC01 (center) with completed rooftop cooling infrastructure and DC02 construction area (background left). Substation visible at right.
Oblique view showing DC01 (right) with fully installed cooling arrays and DC02 (left) at structural steel stage.
DC01 has a reported startup date of 10/2025. Vulcan’s satellite-based construction monitoring had not yet classified this unit as completed at the time of this flight. Our thermal drone survey confirms the unit is not yet energized.
Imagery shows rooftop cooling units (heat exchangers and HVAC equipment) are physically installed across the roof. The corresponding thermal captures reveal a uniformly cold thermal profile with no heat signatures emanating from the cooling infrastructure. An operational data center of this scale would produce clearly visible thermal output from active cooling systems rejecting heat from the server halls.
DC01 rooftop – close-up showing installed cooling unit arrays and HVAC equipment.
DC01 rooftop – thermal captures of cooling section. HVAC units and heat exchangers are uniformly cold.
DC02 has a reported startup date of 2/2026. Vulcan’s satellite monitoring classifies DC02 as Identified with a construction start of 1/22/2026. Drone imagery confirms DC02 is in early-stage construction — structural steel columns are erected, and wall panel installation is in progress. This unit is months from completion.
Direct Intelligence at Your Fingertips
At Vulcan, we don’t just monitor from space; we verify on the ground. Our thermal drone program provides the "ground-truth" required to cut through industry hype and press release optimism.
Not a Vulcan Client Yet? If you need to stay ahead of infrastructure delays, verify energized status, and gain an informational edge on power demand and generation builds, let’s talk.
Schedule a demo to see how our integrated satellite and thermal drone dashboard can transform your market view. Reach out to David Bellman at dbellman@synmax.com to get started.