How to screen a data centre site in British Columbia

Define the project before comparing locations.

A 0.5 MW pilot and a 25 MW campus can produce very different conclusions at the same address. Record initial and ultimate utility demand, IT demand, cooling concept, connectivity target, minimum site area and target date. Keep those assumptions consistent across a shortlist so that the comparison answers one question.

Next, identify what is actually being offered. A listing pin may land on a small parcel within a much larger industrial holding. A supplied development polygon may cross several titles. Atlas can screen an identified parcel or a supplied boundary; the selected footprint must still match the property and rights under consideration.

ParcelMap BC provides a mapped representation of parcels. LTSA identifies the survey plan and registry information as the authoritative sources for legal boundaries and related records. Source: LTSA, ParcelMap BC.

A practical first-pass sequence.

1. Establish the power enquiry.

   Confirm the supplying utility, facility use, initial and expansion demand, existing service rights and the relevant connection process. Distance to a transmission line can direct a conversation, but does not settle spare capacity, service voltage, reinforcement cost or an energization date. Read the BC power-readiness guide before relying on a promising map location.

2. Check the whole footprint.

   Review the mapped parcel, supplied boundary, terrain coverage, mapped buildings and intersecting constraints. Separate total area from a contiguous candidate patch. Then identify the title, access, setbacks, drainage, geotechnical and environmental work that a desktop screen cannot resolve.

3. Match services to operations.

   Write a cooling-water scenario and a peak-day question for the supplier. Ask carriers for serviceability, capacity, physical route information and delivery scope. The water and fibre guide explains why a nearby main or broadband coverage polygon is only part of the answer.

4. Review land use and delivery risk.

   Take zoning and permitted-use questions to the relevant local government with the intended use, equipment and operating concept. Include legal access, abnormal-load delivery, construction staging, drainage, flood and wildfire investigations, backup generation and acoustic design in the next-stage brief. A published map layer does not replace those investigations.

5. Compare the unresolved conditions.

   For each candidate, record the condition, the evidence, who can resolve it and when a decision is needed. A cheaper parcel with an unknown connection route may be less useful to your programme than a more expensive site with a documented study path. Keep that judgement visible instead of hiding it inside a single score.

What the public evidence can support.

Atlas defines 420 possible site-screening checks across its connected public datasets and services, covering power, parcels, water, connectivity, underground infrastructure, environment and other site conditions. These checks are applied to your selected site or parcel. Available results depend on location, coverage and freshness; they are not that many populated results on every parcel. Each selected site has its own observed values, coverage gaps and source dates. Point observations, nearby infrastructure and whole-footprint measurements remain distinct.

Property assessment is useful context, but is not a current asking price or a development appraisal. BC Assessment uses a July 1 valuation date and an October 31 physical-condition and permitted-use date. Compare the assessment year and basis before comparing values. Source: BC Assessment, valuation and condition dates.

For Agricultural Land Reserve screening, check both the mapped intersection and the official follow-up. The Agricultural Land Commission describes its mapping tools as reference information and provides a separate route for official confirmation. Source: ALC, Agricultural Land Reserve maps.

What a useful first report should contain.

Keep five things together: the exact footprint, the project assumptions, dated evidence, explicit unknowns and a prioritized enquiry list. Record whether a result came from a direct observation, a calculation or a planning assumption. If a source failed or had no coverage, keep that visible.

A commissioned Driftwood review can include authorized private and paid data sources, where available, such as licensed property or utility data and authorized utility or carrier responses. Their provenance, permissions and limits stay visible alongside the public evidence. Restricted commercial or utility databases are not automatically included in the free screen. Atlas’s free screen provides this starting structure for micro, small and large data centre profiles. It keeps available power unconfirmed. You can examine an actual sample screen and report before creating an account, then use the workspace to test your own site.