Soluna Dorothy 3 Texas AI Data Center Development Watch

Soluna Holdings has closed the purchase of 397 acres in Briscoe County, Texas, for Project Dorothy 3, a planned renewable-first AI and high-performance-computing campus with potential capacity of up to 300 MW. Soluna's August 24 land announcement places the parcel next to Projects Dorothy 1 and 2 and across from the substation serving the company-owned 150 MW Briscoe Wind Farm.

The land closing moves Dorothy 3 beyond a conceptual site search, but the project remains in development. Soluna's current quarterly update describes preliminary master planning, mobilized design teams, long-lead procurement activity, environmental and water work, surveys, a fiber study, ERCOT integration work, and evaluation of onsite gas. The company has not publicly identified the design firms, general contractor, EPCM, specialty contractors, tenant, construction financing, permits, construction start, first-power date, or completion schedule.

That combination makes Dorothy 3 a useful early-stage construction watch. The owner controls the land and the adjacent generation asset, technical planning is active, and the eventual campus would require substantial power, controls, network, security, life-safety, and commissioning infrastructure. Public evidence does not yet support treating any of those delivery packages as awarded.

Dorothy 3 at a glance

Item	Current public record
Location	397 acres in Briscoe County near Silverton, Texas
Stage	Land closed; planning, studies, and technical development underway
Campus plan	Renewable-first AI/HPC campus with potential capacity up to 300 MW
Adjacent power	Company-owned 150 MW Briscoe Wind Farm and its substation
Current technical work	Master planning, long-lead activity, site studies, fiber, and ERCOT integration
Construction value	Land price, data-center capex, financing, and committed spend undisclosed
Delivery schedule	Construction start, first power, turnover, and completion undisclosed

The 397-acre figure is the closed land position reported by Soluna. Earlier project materials described roughly 300 acres, while the latest announcement says the larger parcel leaves room for additional data halls if more generation or storage becomes available. The announcement does not disclose the seller, purchase price, parcel address, legal description, tax arrangement, or public-infrastructure obligations.

The 300 MW figure is a potential campus envelope. It is not current energized IT load, a committed customer lease, a utility-service award, or a statement that 300 MW of firm power is already available. Soluna's project portfolio distinguishes Dorothy 3 from the operating Dorothy 1 and 2 facilities already present in the broader project area.

The same separation matters on the power side. The Briscoe Wind Farm has approximately 150 MW of nameplate generation. Wind output varies, and a future AI campus designed for continuous workloads needs a complete architecture for renewable production, grid imports, storage or other firming resources, substation capacity, protection, controls, and operational dispatch. Soluna says it is advancing ERCOT integration work and evaluating onsite gas, but final electrical architecture and firm delivery have not been disclosed.

The named organizations and their boundaries

Organization	Source-backed role	Boundary
Soluna Holdings	Owner, operator, and developer	Controls the land and leads development
Briscoe Wind Farm	Adjacent company-owned generation asset	150 MW wind nameplate, not Dorothy 3 IT load
Siemens	Project Grace power and controls validation partner	No full-campus EPC or GC award disclosed
CAMS	Briscoe asset and balance-of-plant O&M support	Wind-farm role, not data-center construction award
GE Vernova	Briscoe wind turbine O&M support	Wind-farm role, not data-center construction award
ERCOT	Texas grid operator	Integration work reported; approvals and scope undisclosed

Soluna's Briscoe acquisition announcement puts the wind asset's April purchase at $53 million. That figure is the acquisition value for an operating generation asset. It should not be presented as Dorothy 3 land value, construction capex, equipment spend, committed financing, or total project cost.

Soluna's Briscoe operating FAQ identifies Consolidated Asset Management Services for asset management and balance-of-plant operations and maintenance, and GE Vernova for turbine operations and maintenance. Those assignments establish named support around the power asset. They do not establish that CAMS or GE holds a Dorothy 3 data-center construction package.

Siemens is the clearest named technical partner connected to the future campus. A Siemens collaboration announcement describes Project Grace, a 2 MW pilot designed to validate electrical infrastructure and controls for rapid GPU-driven power swings. Soluna later said the Grace technical-validation effort had been allocated to Dorothy 3 capacity.

The Project Grace work covers transformers, switchgear, converters, monitoring, SCADA, controls, and structured commissioning. That creates a source-backed technical bridge from a small validation environment to Dorothy 3's larger design problem. It does not identify Siemens as the campus engineer of record, EPC, general contractor, full-campus equipment supplier, controls contractor, or independent commissioning authority.

Soluna says design teams have been mobilized, yet the reviewed public sources do not name them. The architect, civil engineer, structural engineer, MEP engineer, telecom designer, security consultant, fire-protection engineer, sustainability team, and commissioning provider remain open identification targets. The same is true for the general contractor or EPCM and every field specialty contractor.

Where low voltage will enter the campus

System	Likely campus need	Evidence to watch
Fiber and OSP	Diverse entrances, backhaul, and interbuilding backbone	Carrier names, routes, duct banks, splicing, OTDR
Structured cabling	Data halls, meet-me rooms, operations, and support space	Pathways, labeling, testing, and turnover
Access and CCTV	Perimeter, vehicle, building, and data-hall security	Integrator, VMS, credentials, failover, acceptance
Fire and life safety	Electrical rooms, battery systems, halls, and support areas	Alarm interfaces, AHJ reviews, acceptance tests
BMS, EPMS, and SCADA	Power, cooling, generation, and facility visibility	Points lists, controls networks, sequences, trend data
DAS and radio	Campus operations and emergency-response coverage	RF study, AHJ criteria, installation, commissioning
Grounding and bonding	Telecom, pathways, equipment, and sensitive electronics	Design details, testing, QA, and closeout
Integrated commissioning	AI load swings and phased system turnover	Scripts, witness tests, failure modes, documentation

Fiber is already part of the current development record because Soluna says a fiber study is underway. The next useful disclosures are the long-haul and local carriers, diverse route geometry, points of presence, easements, entrance facilities, meet-me-room approach, interbuilding backbone, target service dates, and ownership boundaries for conduit, pulling, splicing, testing, and maintenance.

A 397-acre campus also creates substantial outside-plant coordination. Civil, power, telecom, security, and fire teams may share road crossings, utility corridors, vaults, handholes, duct banks, equipment yards, and building entrances. Early package documents should define separations, grounding, spare pathways, pull lengths, water intrusion controls, labeling, route diversity, and as-built requirements.

The power-control layer is unusually important here. Soluna's model combines company-owned renewable generation, grid interaction, interruptible load behavior, and AI infrastructure. Dorothy 3 will need coordination among substation protection, generation controls, utility telemetry, EPMS, SCADA, BMS, equipment controllers, network architecture, time synchronization, alarms, historian data, cybersecurity, and operating procedures. Project Grace provides evidence that Soluna and Siemens are testing this problem, while the full-campus design and package ownership remain undisclosed.

Security and life safety will develop in parallel. A large AI campus typically requires a secure property boundary, vehicle screening, visitor management, access control, video surveillance, intercoms, intrusion detection, resilient security networks, fire alarm, suppression interfaces, emergency communications, and public-safety radio coverage. These are normal system needs inferred from the announced campus type and scale; they are not announced Dorothy 3 awards.

Commissioning should eventually connect every layer. Power quality and rapid load changes affect switchgear, converters, protective settings, controls, cooling response, alarms, network resilience, and operating procedures. Future bid documents may require component tests, subsystem functional tests, integrated systems tests, failure-mode demonstrations, load-bank work, trend reviews, witness procedures, issue tracking, owner training, and digital turnover.

Current workforce and contractor readiness

Soluna's current careers page provides an owner-level workforce signal, including data-center operations and engineering roles, but the reviewed page does not establish a Dorothy 3 construction opening. Hiring tied specifically to Silverton, Briscoe County, design delivery, site construction, utility integration, commissioning, or tenant operations will be a stronger project milestone.

Contractors pursuing future work can prepare before the package holders surface. Useful readiness includes documented mission-critical experience, safety performance, bonding and insurance capacity, staffing depth, BIM coordination, manufacturer certifications, quality procedures, material tracking, testing records, cybersecurity coordination, and digital closeout examples. The project-specific prequalification and bid documents will control the actual requirements.

Fiber and ICT teams can use BICSI education and certification for data-center design, installation, pathways, project management, and documentation. Fiber Optic Association training supports OSP construction, splicing, inspection, cleaning, loss testing, and OTDR documentation. NFPA training supports electrical, fire, and life-safety coordination, while OSHA outreach training supports construction onboarding and field safety. These are workforce resources, not project hiring commitments.

The next public checkpoints

The first checkpoint is the land record. A Briscoe County deed, appraisal record, legal description, tax filing, commissioners-court item, incentive agreement, or site-plan record could identify the parcel, seller, consideration, local obligations, and permitting route. That would move the project from a city-level map point to a source-backed site location.

The second checkpoint is the delivery team. Architecture, engineering, environmental, survey, fiber, equipment, general contractor, EPCM, or subcontractor announcements would show who is converting the master plan into construction documents and field packages. Long-lead purchase orders may identify transformers, switchgear, UPS or battery systems, cooling equipment, generators, controls platforms, and other enabling equipment before a building permit appears.

The third checkpoint is the power architecture. ERCOT and utility records, substation engineering, service-voltage disclosures, protection studies, interconnection approvals, onsite-generation decisions, equipment deliveries, and energization milestones will show how the 300 MW campus plan is phased against the 150 MW wind asset and other firming resources.

The final early checkpoint is a customer and executable schedule. A definitive tenant agreement, committed IT load, construction financing, notice to proceed, building permit, civil mobilization, foundation work, first-power target, or commissioning schedule would materially change Dorothy 3's stage. Until then, the accurate description is a controlled site with active planning and technical development for a potential 300 MW AI campus.

LVN Signal will continue tracking Dorothy 3 as the parcel, project team, power design, carriers, permits, procurement, hiring, field activity, and commissioning milestones become public. For low-voltage firms, the source-backed fiber study and power-controls validation are the earliest visible lanes, while the actual packages remain open for verification.