BP Solar Farm in Texas Starts Delivery for ExxonMobil Petrochemical Plant

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BP Solar Farm in Texas Starts Delivery for ExxonMobil Petrochemical Plant

BP PLC has put online a 187-megawatt (MW) solar facility in San Patricio County, Texas, which has been contracted to help power a local petrochemical complex owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. The Peacock solar project serves Gulf Coast Growth Ventures, operated by Texas-based ExxonMobil. The petrochemical complex has an ethane […]

The Peacock solar project serves Gulf Coast Growth Ventures, operated by Texas-based ExxonMobil. The petrochemical complex has an ethane steam cracker with an ethylene production capacity of 1.8 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa). The ethylene feeds three derivative units: one monoethylene glycol unit with a 1.1 MMtpa capacity and two polyethylene units that can produce up to 1.3 MMtpa together, according to online information from ExxonMobil.

With an annual expected generation of 360,000 MW hours, the solar farm can cut the petrochemical complex’s greenhouse gas emissions by over 256,000 MMtpa, the equivalent of taking about 55,000 gasoline-powered cars off the road, according to Lightsource BP, the solar arm of BP.

“The Peacock Solar project adds to Lightsource bp’s operational fleet in Texas, helping reduce carbon emissions while diversifying the state’s energy mix to enhance security and reliability,” Helen Brauner, interim chief operating officer of Lightsource BP, said in an online statement.

Peacock is expected to generate $25 million in tax revenue over 25 years, Lightsource BP said. During construction it supported over 300 onsite jobs, according to the company.

“The project also supports U.S. manufacturers, with ultra-low carbon solar panels from Arizona-based First Solar and intelligent trackers from Connecticut-based GameChange Solar”, Lightsource BP added.

The Peacock site will grow vegetation including native species to support pollinators and other wildlife, as well as allow sheep grazing, it said.

“By layering on biodiversity and agrivoltaics initiatives, projects like Peacock offer a win-win for both the environment and local communities”, Brauner said.

Besides Peacock, Lightsource BP has three other solar projects in Texas that are in operation: the 260-MW Impact Solar in Lamar County, the 163-MW Elm Branch Solar in Ellis County and the 153-MW Briar Creek Solar in Navarro County.

It is building two more: the 163-MW Starr Solar in Starr County and the 125-MW Second Division Solar in Brazoria County.

Last year Lightsource BP secured an offtake agreement with fashion brand H&M Group for the Brazoria project.

Second Division Solar was expected to start operation by the end of last year, Lightsource BP said October 31, 2024, announcing the power purchase agreement. “From then on, the Second Division solar farm will deliver enough electricity to power an estimated 20,500 U.S. homes each year, while lowering carbon emissions — the equivalent of taking 33,300 fuel-burning cars off the road”, it said.

BP, which has set a goal to approve projects for 50 GW of net installed renewables capacity globally by 2030, fully took over Lightsource BP last year after acquiring the 50.03 percent stake it did not already own, from founders, management and staff.

Before completing the takeover, Lightsource BP transferred 2.4 GW of its operational and under-construction capacity in the United States to a new joint venture between BP and Lightsource BP’s founders and certain management and staff, according to BP.

Lightsource BP retains “its standalone operating model and independent brand, delivering renewable and affordable energy to businesses and communities across the world”, BP said October 24, 2024, announcing the completion of the takeover.

The brand’s model involves “selling majority interests in assets it has developed to strategic partners”, BP said.

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EPA to end environmental justice programs, monitoring tools

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Intel under Tan: What enterprise IT buyers need to know

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SUSE expands AI tools to control workloads, LLM usage

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D-Wave uses quantum to solve real-world problem

D-Wave published its results today, peer-reviewed in the journal Science. The classical supercomputer that D-Wave benchmarked against was the Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was, until recently, the most powerful supercomputer in the world but moved to second place in November. Two different

ICYMI: Secretary Wright Powers up American Energy at CERAWeek & the Houston Rodeo

“We are unabashedly pursuing a policy of MORE American energy production and infrastructure, not less.” — Secretary Chris Wright at CERAWeek 2025 At the 43rd annual CERAWeek by S&P Global, Secretary Wright outlined the administration’s strategy to enhance the production of affordable, reliable, and secure American energy. He emphasized the critical role of fossil fuels in meeting global energy demands and the need to “end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens.” Read Secretary Wright’s full remarks here.

Petronas Is Evaluating Exit From Argentina Shale Oil Venture

Malaysia’s Petronas is evaluating a sale of its shale oil asset in Argentina, a move that would complete its exit from the country’s booming Vaca Muerta fields as several international drillers also look to divest from the region. Petronas has begun a process that may result in a sale of its 50% stake in La Amarga Chica, a venture with state-run YPF SA in the oil production heartland of Vaca Muerta, according to people familiar with the matter who couldn’t be named discussing private matters. Petronas has already been in talks with a potential suitor, one of the people said. Petronas didn’t respond to a request for comment. Last year, Petronas left a venture with YPF to develop a project for liquefying and exporting shale gas. Petronas’ involvement in La Amarga Chica began in 2014, when Argentina’s shale industry was just getting started. The field’s size is about 46,000 acres, with half corresponding to each partner, according to YPF. If the sale does go ahead, Petronas would follow Exxon Mobil Corp. in divesting from Argentine shale oil and monetizing the assets at a time when the outlook for Vaca Muerta is improving under President Javier Milei. Equinor ASA is also eyeing the door, while TotalEnergies said this week it would sell if it could reap the sort of rich valuations that Exxon got. That’s left the stage largely to homegrown companies. WHAT DO YOU THINK? Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed. MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR Bloomberg

Crude Edges Higher After Seven Weeks of Declines

Oil snapped a seven-week losing streak as US equity markets rebounded and peace talks between Russia and Ukraine stalled, damping expectations that Moscow’s crude will return to the market soon. West Texas Intermediate rose almost 1% to settle above $67 a barrel, supported by a weaker dollar and an advance in US equities. Brent climbed to settle below $71. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region should lay down their arms, and Ukraine pushed back on the request, raising doubts about how soon a ceasefire could be achieved. US crude eked out a 0.2% gain for the week, barely skirting an eighth straight weekly decline that would have been its longest such losing streak since 2015. US President Donald Trump’s salvos against the country’s major trading partners have weighed on crude prices since mid-January, raising the prospect of sputtering economic growth and falling oil consumption. Long-term inflation expectations jumped by the most since 1993, painting a gloomy picture for future energy demand. US crude earlier rose as much as 1.4% after the White House imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil minister and on more companies and vessels used by the OPEC member, while also restricting payment options for Russian energy, before paring the gains. Still, the ceasefire negotiations unfolding between Russia and Ukraine, as well as macroeconomic risk, are holding traders’ attention for now, said Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth Group. The sanctions developments are “all just words until they’re enforced, so the market is less reactive to the headlines recently,” Babin said. The potential return of Russian barrels comes amid projections the market already is headed for an oversupply. The IEA forecasts the global supply surplus is set to deepen as an escalating trade war pressures demand at the same time that

Qatar Supplies Syria With Natural Gas in Latest Post-Assad Boost

Qatar began supplying natural gas to Syria through Jordan, the latest boost to the war-torn country’s interim government following the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad. About 2 million cubic meters a day will be sent via the Arab Gas Pipeline, eventually contributing a total of 400 megawatts to the power grid, Syrian state-run news agency Sana said. The supplies were approved by Washington, Reuters reported earlier, without providing numbers. The contract signals further recognition for the government of Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who led the battle to overthrow Assad. It should help increase average power supply for Syrians to four hours a day, up from two, helping ease severe energy shortages. The UK removed the Syrian central bank and 23 other entities, mainly lenders and energy companies, from a list of sanctioned institutions earlier this month, following similar moves by several Western countries. Natural gas supplies through the Arab Gas Pipeline to Syria, and by extension to Lebanon, have been disrupted since 2011 due to the war and have been largely inactive since then. The exact mechanism by which Qatar will transport the gas to Syria and reactivate that section of the pipeline is unclear, as years of conflict have damaged vital energy infrastructure. Plus, the only LNG storage facility in Jordan, a vessel off the Red Sea port city of Aqaba, will be leased to Egypt for 10 years starting mid-2025. The power supply hinges on raising the production capacity of Syria’s Deir Ali power station, state-run Qatar News Agency said. This supply level is the “first phase” of a deal signed between Qatar Fund for Development and the Jordanian Ministry of Energy, in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program, which will oversee the “executive aspects of the project”. Syria’s interim government is seeking to replace oil imports from

Energy Bosses Shrug Off DeepSeek to Focus on Powering AI Boom

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The Emperor’s New Clothes: BP and Shell’s duck diplomacy

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IBM laying foundation for mainframe as ultimate AI server

“It will truly change what customers are able to do with AI,” Stowell said. IBM’s mainframe processors The next generation of processors is expected to continue a long history of generation-to-generation improvements, IBM stated in a new white paper on AI and the mainframe. “They are projected to clock in at 5.5 GHz. and include ten 36 MB level 2 caches. They’ll feature built-in low-latency data processing for accelerated I/O as well as a completely redesigned cache and chip-interconnection infrastructure for more on-chip cache and compute capacity,” IBM wrote. Today’s mainframes also have extensions and accelerators that integrate with the core systems. These specialized add-ons are designed to enable the adoption of technologies such as Java, cloud and AI by accelerating computing paradigms that are essential for high-volume, low-latency transaction processing, IBM wrote. “The next crop of AI accelerators are expected to be significantly enhanced—with each accelerator designed to deliver 4 times more compute power, reaching 24 trillion operations per second (TOPS),” IBM wrote. “The I/O and cache improvements will enable even faster processing and analysis of large amounts of data and consolidation of workloads running across multiple servers, for savings in data center space and power costs. And the new accelerators will provide increased capacity to enable additional transaction clock time to perform enhanced in-transaction AI inferencing.” In addition, the next generation of the accelerator architecture is expected to be more efficient for AI tasks. “Unlike standard CPUs, the chip architecture will have a simpler layout, designed to send data directly from one compute engine, and use a range of lower- precision numeric formats. These enhancements are expected to make running AI models more energy efficient and far less memory intensive. As a result, mainframe users can leverage much more complex AI models and perform AI inferencing at a greater scale

VergeIO enhances VergeFabric network virtualization offering

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Podcast: On the Frontier of Modular Edge AI Data Centers with Flexnode’s Andrew Lindsey

The modular data center industry is undergoing a seismic shift in the age of AI, and few are as deeply embedded in this transformation as Andrew Lindsey, Co-Founder and CEO of Flexnode. In a recent episode of the Data Center Frontier Show podcast, Lindsey joined Editor-in-Chief Matt Vincent and Senior Editor David Chernicoff to discuss the evolution of modular data centers, the growing demand for high-density liquid-cooled solutions, and the industry factors driving this momentum. A Background Rooted in Innovation Lindsey’s career has been defined by the intersection of technology and the built environment. Prior to launching Flexnode, he worked at Alpha Corporation, a top 100 engineering and construction management firm founded by his father in 1979. His early career involved spearheading technology adoption within the firm, with a focus on high-security infrastructure for both government and private clients. Recognizing a massive opportunity in the data center space, Lindsey saw a need for an innovative approach to infrastructure deployment. “The construction industry is relatively uninnovative,” he explained, citing a McKinsey study that ranked construction as the second least-digitized industry—just above fishing and wildlife, which remains deliberately undigitized. Given the billions of square feet of data center infrastructure required in a relatively short timeframe, Lindsey set out to streamline and modernize the process. Founded four years ago, Flexnode delivers modular data centers with a fully integrated approach, handling everything from site selection to design, engineering, manufacturing, deployment, operations, and even end-of-life decommissioning. Their core mission is to provide an “easy button” for high-density computing solutions, including cloud and dedicated GPU infrastructure, allowing faster and more efficient deployment of modular data centers. The Rising Momentum for Modular Data Centers As Vincent noted, Data Center Frontier has closely tracked the increasing traction of modular infrastructure. Lindsey has been at the forefront of this

Last Energy to Deploy 30 Microreactors in Texas for Data Centers

As the demand for data center power surges in Texas, nuclear startup Last Energy has now announced plans to build 30 microreactors in the state’s Haskell County near the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The reactors will serve a growing customer base of data center operators in the region looking for reliable, carbon-free energy. The plan marks Last Energy’s largest project to date and a significant step in advancing modular nuclear power as a viable solution for high-density computing infrastructure. Meeting the Looming Power Demands of Texas Data Centers Texas is already home to over 340 data centers, with significant expansion underway. Google is increasing its data center footprint in Dallas, while OpenAI’s Stargate has announced plans for a new facility in Abilene, just an hour south of Last Energy’s planned site. The company notes the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area alone is projected to require an additional 43 gigawatts of power in the coming years, far surpassing current grid capacity. To help remediate, Last Energy has secured a 200+ acre site in Haskell County, approximately three and a half hours west of Dallas. The company has also filed for a grid connection with ERCOT, with plans to deliver power via a mix of private wire and grid transmission. Additionally, Last Energy has begun pre-application engagement with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for an Early Site Permit, a key step in securing regulatory approval. According to Last Energy CEO Bret Kugelmass, the company’s modular approach is designed to bring nuclear energy online faster than traditional projects. “Nuclear power is the most effective way to meet Texas’ growing energy demand, but it needs to be deployed faster and at scale,” Kugelmass said. “Our microreactors are designed to be plug-and-play, enabling data center operators to bypass the constraints of an overloaded grid.” Scaling Nuclear for

Data Center Jobs: Engineering and Technician Jobs Available in Major Markets

Each month Data Center Frontier, in partnership with Pkaza, posts some of the hottest data center career opportunities in the market. Here’s a look at some of the latest data center jobs posted on the Data Center Frontier jobs board, powered by Pkaza Critical Facilities Recruiting. Data Center Facility Engineer (Night Shift Available) Ashburn, VAThis position is also available in: Tacoma, WA (Nights), Days/Nights: Needham, MA and New York City, NY. This opportunity is working directly with a leading mission-critical data center developer / wholesaler / colo provider. This firm provides data center solutions custom-fit to the requirements of their client’s mission-critical operational facilities. They provide reliability of mission-critical facilities for many of the world’s largest organizations facilities supporting enterprise clients and hyperscale companies. This opportunity provides a career-growth minded role with exciting projects with leading-edge technology and innovation as well as competitive salaries and benefits. Electrical Commissioning Engineer New Albany, OHThis traveling position is also available in: Somerset, NJ; Boydton, VA; Richmond, VA; Ashburn, VA; Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA; Hampton, GA; Fayetteville, GA; Des Moines, IA; San Jose, CA; Portland, OR; St Louis, MO; Phoenix, AZ; Dallas, TX; Chicago, IL; or Toronto, ON. *** ALSO looking for a LEAD EE and ME CxA agents.*** Our client is an engineering design and commissioning company that has a national footprint and specializes in MEP critical facilities design. They provide design, commissioning, consulting and management expertise in the critical facilities space. They have a mindset to provide reliability, energy efficiency, sustainable design and LEED expertise when providing these consulting services for enterprise, colocation and hyperscale companies. This career-growth minded opportunity offers exciting projects with leading-edge technology and innovation as well as competitive salaries and benefits. Switchgear Field Service Technician – Critical Facilities Nationwide TravelThis position is also available in: Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA; Dallas,

Amid Shifting Regional Data Center Policies, Iron Mountain and DC Blox Both Expand in Virginia’s Henrico County

The dynamic landscape of data center developments in Maryland and Virginia exemplify the intricate balance between fostering technological growth and addressing community and environmental concerns. Data center developers in this region find themselves both in the crosshairs of groups worried about the environment and other groups looking to drive economic growth. In some cases, the groups are different components of the same organizations, such as local governments. For data center development, meeting the needs of these competing interests often means walking a none-too-stable tightrope. Rapid Government Action Encourages Growth In May 2024, Maryland demonstrated its commitment to attracting data center investments by enacting the Critical Infrastructure Streamlining Act. This legislation provides a clear framework for the use of emergency backup power generation, addressing previous regulatory challenges that a few months earlier had hindered projects like Aligned Data Centers’ proposed 264-megawatt campus in Frederick County, causing Aligned to pull out of the project. However, just days after the Act was signed by the governor, Aligned reiterated its plans to move forward with development in Maryland. With the Quantum Loop and the related data center development making Frederick County a focal point for a balanced approach, the industry is paying careful attention to the pace of development and the relations between developers, communities and the government. In September of 2024, Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater revealed draft legislation that would potentially restrict where in the county data centers could be built. The legislation was based on information found in the Frederick County Data Centers Workgroup’s final report. Those bills would update existing regulations and create a floating zone for Critical Digital Infrastructure and place specific requirements on siting data centers. Statewide, a cautious approach to environmental and community impacts statewide has been deemed important. In January 2025, legislators introduced SB116, a bill

Microsoft will invest $80B in AI data centers in fiscal 2025

And Microsoft isn’t the only one that is ramping up its investments into AI-enabled data centers. Rival cloud service providers are all investing in either upgrading or opening new data centers to capture a larger chunk of business from developers and users of large language models (LLMs). In a report published in October 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence estimated that demand for generative AI would push Microsoft, AWS, Google, Oracle, Meta, and Apple would between them devote $200 billion to capex in 2025, up from $110 billion in 2023. Microsoft is one of the biggest spenders, followed closely by Google and AWS, Bloomberg Intelligence said. Its estimate of Microsoft’s capital spending on AI, at $62.4 billion for calendar 2025, is lower than Smith’s claim that the company will invest $80 billion in the fiscal year to June 30, 2025. Both figures, though, are way higher than Microsoft’s 2020 capital expenditure of “just” $17.6 billion. The majority of the increased spending is tied to cloud services and the expansion of AI infrastructure needed to provide compute capacity for OpenAI workloads. Separately, last October Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said his company planned total capex spend of $75 billion in 2024 and even more in 2025, with much of it going to AWS, its cloud computing division.

John Deere unveils more autonomous farm machines to address skill labor shortage

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Self-driving tractors might be the path to self-driving cars. John Deere has revealed a new line of autonomous machines and tech across agriculture, construction and commercial landscaping. The Moline, Illinois-based John Deere has been in business for 187 years, yet it’s been a regular as a non-tech company showing off technology at the big tech trade show in Las Vegas and is back at CES 2025 with more autonomous tractors and other vehicles. This is not something we usually cover, but John Deere has a lot of data that is interesting in the big picture of tech. The message from the company is that there aren’t enough skilled farm laborers to do the work that its customers need. It’s been a challenge for most of the last two decades, said Jahmy Hindman, CTO at John Deere, in a briefing. Much of the tech will come this fall and after that. He noted that the average farmer in the U.S. is over 58 and works 12 to 18 hours a day to grow food for us. And he said the American Farm Bureau Federation estimates there are roughly 2.4 million farm jobs that need to be filled annually; and the agricultural work force continues to shrink. (This is my hint to the anti-immigration crowd). John Deere’s autonomous 9RX Tractor. Farmers can oversee it using an app. While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, a commonality across all is skilled labor availability. In construction, about 80% percent of contractors struggle to find skilled labor. And in commercial landscaping, 86% of landscaping business owners can’t find labor to fill open positions, he said. “They have to figure out how to do

2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More 2025 is poised to be a pivotal year for enterprise AI. The past year has seen rapid innovation, and this year will see the same. This has made it more critical than ever to revisit your AI strategy to stay competitive and create value for your customers. From scaling AI agents to optimizing costs, here are the five critical areas enterprises should prioritize for their AI strategy this year. 1. Agents: the next generation of automation AI agents are no longer theoretical. In 2025, they’re indispensable tools for enterprises looking to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions. Unlike traditional software, agents powered by large language models (LLMs) can make nuanced decisions, navigate complex multi-step tasks, and integrate seamlessly with tools and APIs. At the start of 2024, agents were not ready for prime time, making frustrating mistakes like hallucinating URLs. They started getting better as frontier large language models themselves improved. “Let me put it this way,” said Sam Witteveen, cofounder of Red Dragon, a company that develops agents for companies, and that recently reviewed the 48 agents it built last year. “Interestingly, the ones that we built at the start of the year, a lot of those worked way better at the end of the year just because the models got better.” Witteveen shared this in the video podcast we filmed to discuss these five big trends in detail. Models are getting better and hallucinating less, and they’re also being trained to do agentic tasks. Another feature that the model providers are researching is a way to use the LLM as a judge, and as models get cheaper (something we’ll cover below), companies can use three or more models to

OpenAI’s red teaming innovations define new essentials for security leaders in the AI era

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI has taken a more aggressive approach to red teaming than its AI competitors, demonstrating its security teams’ advanced capabilities in two areas: multi-step reinforcement and external red teaming. OpenAI recently released two papers that set a new competitive standard for improving the quality, reliability and safety of AI models in these two techniques and more. The first paper, “OpenAI’s Approach to External Red Teaming for AI Models and Systems,” reports that specialized teams outside the company have proven effective in uncovering vulnerabilities that might otherwise have made it into a released model because in-house testing techniques may have missed them. In the second paper, “Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-Generated Rewards and Multi-Step Reinforcement Learning,” OpenAI introduces an automated framework that relies on iterative reinforcement learning to generate a broad spectrum of novel, wide-ranging attacks. Going all-in on red teaming pays practical, competitive dividends It’s encouraging to see competitive intensity in red teaming growing among AI companies. When Anthropic released its AI red team guidelines in June of last year, it joined AI providers including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and even the U.S.’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which all had released red teaming frameworks. Investing heavily in red teaming yields tangible benefits for security leaders in any organization. OpenAI’s paper on external red teaming provides a detailed analysis of how the company strives to create specialized external teams that include cybersecurity and subject matter experts. The goal is to see if knowledgeable external teams can defeat models’ security perimeters and find gaps in their security, biases and controls that prompt-based testing couldn’t find. What makes OpenAI’s recent papers noteworthy is how well they define using human-in-the-middle

Launching your first AI project with a grain of RICE: Weighing reach, impact, confidence and effort to create your roadmap

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Businesses know they can’t ignore AI,

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