The U.S. Department of Energy is asking developers to submit proposals for industrial use of roughly 19,000 acres of Hanford land, about 30 square miles, with data centers now listed among the possible projects, according to the Tri-City Herald.
The acreage sits within Hanford's Comprehensive Land Use Plan, which set aside only 10% of the site for industrial use. DOE has spent recent months trying to line up developers to lease that land for clean-energy generation and storage, part of a broader federal effort branded "Cleanup to Clean Energy" that aims to put old nuclear reservation land to new use as environmental remediation winds down.
"The plan to use the large swath of industrial land for clean energy production is an opportunity to speed up industrial use of the land," Ike White, a senior adviser with DOE's Office of Environmental Management, told the Herald.
A parcel already tied to data centers
This isn't DOE's first attempt to drum up interest in Hanford-area land for computing infrastructure. Last spring, the agency issued a nationwide request for information asking developers about building data centers and AI infrastructure at 16 federal sites, including a 295-acre parcel in Richland, according to the Spokesman-Review. That land is former Hanford property DOE transferred to the city of Richland in 2015, through the Tri-City Development Council, for what was billed as an "Advanced Clean Energy Park." DOE's pitch to developers at the time noted the Tri-Cities' skilled labor force as an advantage for building and running power generation tied to a data center.
It's not clear whether the new request for proposals replaces that 2025 solicitation or runs alongside it. Nor is it clear what deadline developers face to respond, or whether DOE or TRIDEC will lead the review of submissions.
Competition for the land is already underway
DOE isn't starting from scratch. Eleven companies have already submitted proposals for Hanford's industrial land, including a project from Hecate Energy that would claim more than half of the remaining industrial acreage in Hanford's southeast corner for what could become one of the nation's largest solar installations, the Herald reported via AOL. TRIDEC has pushed to keep part of that acreage reserved for a locally driven clean-energy park rather than handing all of it to outside developers.
Meanwhile, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has floated its own, smaller data-center idea. PNNL has requested information on behalf of DOE about building a data center on its secure, closed-to-the-public campus within the Hanford boundary, potentially as soon as 2028. "We're considering the possibility of a small data center due to increased focus on AI at PNNL," the lab told the Tri-City Herald, according to AOL, citing growing use of artificial intelligence in its research.
Part of a bigger regional pattern
The Hanford solicitation lands as the Tri-Cities is already absorbing a wave of data-center interest. Amazon has proposed a data-center campus on land it purchased in West Richland, a project that has drawn pushback from residents over fast-tracked zoning. Atlas Agro has also proposed a facility near Horn Rapids Road. Taken together, the Hanford industrial-land RFP, the Richland parcel, PNNL's campus proposal and the West Richland project point to the same conclusion: the region's available land, skilled workforce and proximity to PNNL have made it a target for AI infrastructure development well beyond Hanford's fences.
That growth raises questions about power supply. TRIDEC officials have said Northwest Power Act rules limit how much large AI load the region's existing hydropower allocations can support without separate commercial power arrangements, according to Citizen Portal AI. Whether any Hanford land proposal would require a fresh environmental assessment or public comment period, standard for past Hanford land transfers, has not been addressed in DOE's latest announcement.
