Cold Underground Thermal Energy Storage

Bank nature's greatest cooling resource.

More compute from the same interconnection.

Niveros stores winter cold in the subsurface and delivers it to AI data centers all summer, taking chillers off the peak and giving that power capacity back to IT load. A closed loop that consumes no water, built, owned and operated by Niveros.

Discuss a site See the capacity case
01  Cold charge

Winter air does the work.

When ambient temperatures fall, dry coolers reject heat to the outside air and drive a sealed glycol loop well below the ground's natural temperature. The loop circulates through a field of closed-loop boreholes 100–300 meters deep, drawing heat out of the surrounding geology.

02  Seasonal storage

The subsurface becomes the reservoir.

The borefield turns a large volume of subsurface geology into a seasonal cold store. Its thermal mass holds the charge for months with minimal loss. The loop is sealed: nothing is extracted, nothing evaporates, and no water is consumed.

03  Cold discharge

Cold on tap, all summer.

Through the entire cooling season the loop runs in reverse. Stored cold passes through the Niveros Modular Tie-In into the facility's cooling loop, and the facility's waste heat goes into the ground instead of the city air, where it would add to urban heat in the hottest months of the year.

04  Capacity

Chillers move to reserve.

At summer design conditions, the chiller plant claims a large share of a data center's fixed power capacity. With stored cold carrying the summer load, existing chillers stay in place as a second, independent way to cool, and the power they would have drawn is unlocked for additional compute.

28%of power capacity to cooling, conventional plant
14%of power capacity to cooling with Niveros
+19% compute67 MW → 80 MW of IT load on the same 100 MW connection

Illustrative 100 MW facility at design summer conditions.

05  Integration

One connection to existing infrastructure.

Niveros is heat rejection equipment. The Niveros Modular Tie-In, a heat exchanger skid, connects it to the facility water loop, upstream of whatever cools the white space. Stored cold sits below any facility supply temperature, so the system runs efficiently across the full range, from chilled water to warm-water liquid cooling.

The capacity case

More compute from the same interconnection.

Power capacity is the binding constraint for AI infrastructure. New generation and transmission take years, which makes the interconnection a site already holds its most valuable asset. At summer design conditions, cooling consumes a substantial share of it. Niveros takes that load off the grid connection and gives the capacity back to compute, behind the meter, with no new utility service.

Illustrative 100 MW facility · share of power capacity at design summer conditions1
  • IT load
  • Unlocked IT
  • Cooling
  • Other (electrical losses)
Conventional plant67 MW of IT load
67 MW
28 MW
5 MW
With Niveros80 MW of IT load
67 MW
+13 MW
14 MW
6 MW
0 MW50 MW100 MW power capacity

Cooling falls from 28 MW to 14 MW. Of the 14 MW freed, 13 MW goes to added IT load and 1 MW covers the electrical losses of the larger IT load.

1 Illustrative air-cooled chilled-water colocation facility with a 100 MW utility interconnection at full IT load on a 35 °C (95 °F) design day. Per MW of IT load: chiller plant 320 kW, pumps and air handlers 90 kW, electrical losses and other 80 kW. With Niveros, chillers run at trim (50 kW) plus 30 kW of borefield circulation. Results vary with climate, cooling architecture and the existing plant.

Capacity, not efficiency

Critical compute load is limited by two things: the utility interconnection and peak cooling load. Cold UTES maximizes a facility's critical compute load by cutting the megawatts allocated to cooling.

Two ways to cool

Existing chillers stay in place and stay available. Stored cold carries the summer load; mechanical cooling becomes a reserve, not a single point of dependence.

Seasonal, not hourly

This is long-duration seasonal storage. Cold charged through the winter is discharged continuously across the cooling season, not held for a few peak hours.

Integration

Efficient at any facility supply temperature.

Niveros connects to the facility water loop through the Niveros Modular Tie-In, a heat exchanger skid that keeps the two loops hydraulically separate, so nothing changes inside the data hall. Stored cold sits below the full range of facility supply temperatures, which keeps approach temperatures wide and pumping efficient whatever the loop runs at.

Facility supply temperature
Chilled water, CRAH, rear-door
Warm-water liquid cooling, direct-to-chip, immersion
ColderWarmer
Niveros stored cold serves the full range efficiently

Operating sites

Borefield on adjacent land, parking or campus open space. A valved tie-in at the facility water header, designed to go in without white-space downtime.

New builds

Borefield planned with the site layout and drilled alongside civil works. A smaller mechanical plant from day one and more of the site's power capacity allocated to compute.

Ownership model

Thermal infrastructure, not equipment.

Niveros finances, builds, owns and operates the system under a long-term thermal services agreement. The operator commits no capital and pays for cooling delivered.

Zero operator capex

Drilling, the borefield, the Niveros Modular Tie-In and controls are financed and owned by Niveros.

Pay for cooling delivered

A long-term thermal services agreement priced on the cooling the system provides.

Operated by Niveros

We run and maintain the system for the life of the agreement, alongside your facilities team.

Water and heat

Closed loop. Zero water consumed.

No water consumed

The loop is sealed. Evaporative cooling towers reject heat by losing water to the air; Niveros consumes none and draws nothing from aquifers or municipal supply.

Waste heat goes underground

Conventional plants dump data center heat into the surrounding air through summer, adding to the urban heat island when cities are already at their hottest. Niveros rejects that heat into the subsurface and releases it in winter.

Development

Sites under development across eight markets.

Screened for subsurface geology, charging climate and data center load.

Map of the United States highlighting Niveros development markets New YorkMassachusettsPennsylvaniaNorthern VirginiaIllinoisWashingtonArizonaTexas
    Contact

    Tell us about your site.

    Send a location, a power figure or a constraint. We'll come back with a first read on subsurface suitability and the capacity case.

    • Operators with power-constrained or high-PUE facilities
    • Developers planning campuses in suitable geology
    • Utilities, landowners and public partners near data center load