Weekend Interview: CleanArc COO Lindsey Bruner On Making Data Centers Green And Bringing Women Into The Industry

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Raised on a farm in rural Illinois, Lindsey Bruner is trying to make data centers green.

Data center providers are struggling to find development sites with access to the massive amounts of power these buildings require. Adding to this challenge, their largest tenants increasingly demand that the power comes from renewable sources. An experienced executive in both the data center and renewable energy industries, Lindsey Bruner has positioned herself at the nexus of two of the sector’s major challenges. 

The Duke University graduate spent the better part of a decade at renewable energy giant RES Group on teams developing solar and wind generation projects. She then moved to colocation data center REIT CyrusOne, leading the company’s expansion and build-out as vice president of project development.

In January, Bruner stepped into the chief operating officer role at CleanArc Data Centers, a company that reflects her expertise in both data centers and clean energy development. The early stage firm, which announced its launch in January, three weeks before her hiring, aims to build single-tenant data centers for Big Tech hyperscalers that are powered almost entirely by renewables like wind and solar. While CleanArc has yet to unveil its first project, the company is backed by energy investor 547 Energy and led by James Trout, the founder of Vantage Data Centers and former CEO of CoreSite.

Bruner spoke with Bisnow about taking risks, climbing mountains and what it will take to bring more women into the data center space.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bisnow: Your career didn’t begin in data center development. What led you to this corner of the commercial real estate world? 

Bruner: I started off as a lawyer practicing real estate and other transactional law in private practice. Then I was in-house counsel to a company called RES, the world's largest independent power producer who was developing utility-scale wind and solar when I started there. I was there for almost a decade before a recruiter called and asked what I knew about data centers. I said, "What's a data center?"

The opportunity was at CyrusOne, doing a lot of the same things I did at RES, mainly working with the real estate and construction teams. I took that role and was eventually promoted to the business side, running the project development team responsible for site selection and acquisition all the way through entitlements — basically setting our projects up for the construction team with land and power. 

I was at CyrusOne until 2022 when there was this tiny little $15B acquisition where CyrusOne got taken private by KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners. I connected with [CleanArc founder] Jim Trout and learned about what he was putting together, which sounded really fantastic. I mean, CleanArc brings together both significant pieces of my background: data centers and renewable energy. So, I took that leap.

Bisnow: You may not have known what a data center was before joining CyrusOne, but it seems like there’s lot of overlapping knowledge and skills between the renewable energy business and data center development. These buildings are huge power consumers, and the development challenges are increasingly all about energy procurement. 

Bruner: It's a very similar skill set. When I first interviewed with CyrusOne’s general counsel, one of the first things he said after looking at my resume was, "I see you speak megawatts." There’s a lot of similarities between the renewables development process and the data center development process. Really, the only major difference is that one is creating power capacity and putting energy onto the grid and the other one is taking it off. 

There are differences too. There's definitely some more technical pieces of data center design, construction, development and operations that I've climbed a small mountain on at CyrusOne and I’m climbing a bigger mountain on in my role at CleanArc. The learning curve is there. But it's a fascinating industry to be a part of with a lot of opportunity for growth. 

Bisnow: Let’s talk about CleanArc. You’re building data centers for Big Tech tenants with ambitious carbon reduction goals for their data center portfolios, and CleanArc is promising data centers that run on close to 100% green energy. Tenants like Microsoft, Google or Meta already reduce their carbon footprint on paper through buying renewable energy certificates or power purchase agreements that finance the development of renewables. What are you guys doing that’s different, and what’s the benefit for tenants? 

Bruner: We recognize that the need for energy transition is real and that it’s very important to our customers. Our target customers have all very publicly stated that they want to be carbon-neutral in terms of their energy consumption. They've been going about that in the ways that are readily available at this point — things like renewable energy certificates or signing up for [power purchase agreements] that match their annual consumption. Those are great ways to bring additional power onto the grid and every little bit helps. But they're not the most efficient or the most capital-efficient. 

At CleanArc, we've set up a team that specializes in energy structuring to help customers create a product that is what we call load following — meaning that for every electron that you use at the data center, you're actually pulling an electron from a green energy project, whether that's wind, solar, storage or some combination of all three. It’s the next evolution of green energy contracting.

Bisnow: So, you’re not going to be hooking up your data centers directly to wind or solar. But you're providing more sophisticated renewable energy procurement that gives tenants more bang for their renewables buck and adds green energy generation to the utility that’s actually providing the power. 

Bruner: Exactly. We're not talking about doing stuff behind the meter, which would be something like power generation on-site or adjacent that has a connection outside of the grid. But it is still going to put more renewables onto the grids of every utility that we contract with for power capacity. We're bringing the load, but we're also bringing the generation to support it.

Bisnow: A study published this summer revealed that women account for just 8% of the data center workforce, a lower percentage than the mining or construction industries, by comparison. There’s not a ton of women in C-suite roles. What’s going on here? 

Bruner: There's really no good reason. There's a conception of the data center industry as a construction industry that's heavily trade-based and that’s also heavily tech and engineering — all industries that are traditionally very male-dominated. But I know a lot of women in technical and construction roles throughout the industry. We're working to increase visibility and really dig into that question of what’s keeping women out because there's absolutely no reason that we shouldn't account for a larger percentage of the workforce. 

I don’t necessarily think the goal here should be parity where women account for 50% of C-suite roles. It just shouldn’t be remarkable to have a woman in a C-suite role. It shouldn't be remarkable to the point that I get outreach to speak at a conference I’ve never been to before from another COO that I've never met before simply because we're both female COOs. I shouldn't be a female COO; it should be just a COO. You should never have to put that qualifier on it. 

Bisnow: What needs to happen to bring more women into the industry? 

Bruner: You can't just hire women and then say that you've done your job. You have to create opportunities for them to advance, and you have to be intentional about it. You have to acknowledge that there will be differences in how you might need to approach promoting your female employees or talking to them about their career path differently than with male employees. 

There are studies showing that men will apply for a job if they hit at least 60% of the qualifications, while women won’t apply unless they hit 100%. So a high-performing employee that's a man might go after new roles and be seen as more promotable, whereas a female employee knocking it out of the park may think she's missing a few key skills. You won’t know this unless you actually talk to her about it. So it can’t be a check-the-box exercise. 

Bisnow: On a completely different note, you used a mountain climbing metaphor in reference to your learning curve at CyrusOne and CleanArc, and I saw a picture of you on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. That’s no joke. Are you a serious mountain climber? 

Bruner: No! Climbing Kilimanjaro was about as outside my comfort zone as I could possibly get. It was in February of 2022. I was part of a group of five women, all of us current or former co-workers at CyrusOne. 

We took the hardest route to climb: five days to reach the summit and a day to get back down. It was an incredible experience. It’s out of my comfort zone, but I just went full bore into it. No starting with a simple hike in Big Bend and camping out for a couple of nights or something like that. It was straight into sleeping on the side of the tallest mountain in Africa.

It’s very physically and mentally challenging, and there are a lot of places you can seriously hurt yourself if you misstep, plus you're 19,000 feet in the air. It forces you to confront a lot of fears — fears of heights, fears of failure, fears of dying. 

Bisnow: OK, so mountain climbing is not your normal thing. What is your weekend routine or favorite weekend activity?

Bruner: Usually at home in Fort Worth, you will find me in the huge vegetable garden in my front yard or you will find me on my horse. 

Bisnow: You own a horse?

Bruner: I am a cowgirl born and bred. I grew up in central Illinois on a family cattle, corn and soybean farm. But this is the first horse that I’ve owned. It's definitely different having your own animal to be responsible for and learning her ins and outs and her quirks. I've had her for a little under two years now, so we're still getting to know each other. 

Bisnow: Turning to data centers before I let you go: What’s your bold prediction for the year ahead?

Bruner: By the time we get to the end of 2024, absorbed capacity will have more than tripled from 2023.