As data center firms face ballooning capital requirements to procure power for development sites, hyperscale provider Switch is pioneering a new approach to ensuring it has access to upfront cash for electricity.

Utilities and grid operators increasingly want data center developers to pay up long before a single shovel is in the ground. Power providers are worried about spending billions of dollars on infrastructure improvements to serve speculative data center projects that don’t materialize. To mitigate this risk, they are enacting measures requiring data centers to make predevelopment payments that can be north of $400M to receive or even just apply for power.

Las Vegas-based Switch is taking a novel approach to ensuring it has this cash in hand, securing $2.6B in pledges from 11 banks specifically to guarantee payments to utilities, Bloomberg reports.

The agreements, known as performance letter of credit facilities, guarantee Switch’s obligations to power providers if the firm is unable to make them itself. The debt is only drawn if Switch fails to meet its obligations to service providers.

The bank pledges are the first syndicated credit facility of their kind, Switch leaders told Bloomberg. They said it highlights the advantages the major longtime players in the data center space have when it comes to accessing upfront cash for development in a sector where speculative lending is extremely rare.

“It’s the biggest, established operators with that access,” Switch Chief Financial Officer Madonna Park told Bloomberg.

Founded in 2000 by longtime industry leader Rob Roy, Switch was acquired by DigitalBridge in 2022 in an $11B take-private deal. IFM Investors and Australian pension fund Aware Super also own significant stakes in Switch, which operates campuses in Nevada, Michigan, Georgia and Texas.

Switch isn't the only data center provider getting creative to ensure it has the liquidity needed to procure electricity.

Cash-strapped data center developers are increasingly turning to capital recycling — selling stabilized assets and using the proceeds to fund new projects — and issuing securities backed by data center assets to ensure they have cash available for power.

Digital Realty has launched a development fund for institutional investors to build a $15B liquidity pool its leaders call “dry powder” for predevelopment power acquisition.

Other firms are developing their own novel approaches to solving the same predevelopment cash problem. Among them is Accelerate, a real estate investor that is partnering with data center firms to acquire the land on which a campus will be built and then lease it back to that same developer. This effectively provides a cash infusion that is paid back gradually in the form of rent.