Zenith Volts Data Center, Chaves County, New Mexico

Zenith Volts Corp., a company based in Cheyenne, Wyoming, plans a data center campus powered by an on-site solar farm and battery storage on ranch land about 20 miles south of Roswell, near Lake Arthur in Chaves County. The Chaves County Commission approved a special use permit for the project in August 2025, with Commissioner Richard Taylor casting the only vote against it. Data Center Dynamics reported the project's capacity at 1.24 gigawatts.

The approved solar facility covers 1,265 megawatts on the north side of West Pearson Road, next to a 250-acre battery storage system, on about 8,500 acres of grazing land owned by Wade Berry, who filed the permit application. County staff estimated the data center itself would need about 632 megawatts during the day, requiring roughly 633,000 solar panels across more than 6,000 acres to supply it. Zenith project manager Nick Coleman told the Albuquerque Journal the data center would support 1.3 gigawatts, at an estimated cost of $11.7 billion.

Central Valley Electric Cooperative, the utility for the area, wrote that it lacks the transmission lines and power capacity to serve the site: "CVE currently doesn't have suitable electric transmission line infrastructure or sufficient power capacity to serve the facility's primary or standby power needs," wrote Ransom Spencer, the cooperative's manager of distribution engineering. Coleman said the site will not connect to the grid instead, which he said avoids passing costs to the general public.

Apart from company representatives and Berry, no one spoke in favor of the project at the county hearing. One neighbor who spoke against it told commissioners, "I'm not totally against it; I'm not totally for it. I just want more transparency," and asked how hail, wildlife and weather would affect the site. Commissioner Hub Corn said the permit should be limited to a set number of acres, since neither the start date nor the site of initial construction had been decided.

Louis Jaramillo, the county's planning and zoning director, said the county offered no incentives to Zenith ahead of approval. Zenith will own and operate the campus and was still in discussion with potential tenants as of October 2025. A Zenith acquisitions officer told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle that the company itself would not be the end client and was only beginning its search for a tenant.

The county attached 17 conditions to the permit, including a two-year deadline to break ground. Coleman said in October 2025 that the first phase, the solar farm and battery storage, would begin within weeks. No report since October 2025 has confirmed that construction started or that a tenant signed.