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Beale Infrastructure, in a letter attached to a memo County Administrator Jan Lesher released Thursday, says its “commitment to pursue 100% renewable energy for its Pima County data center is a significant additional investment and reflects the company’s dedication to sustainable infrastructure development.�

It will be achieved, Beale said in the letter, through the energy supply agreement it is seeking with Tucson Electric Power. Beale “will seek to accelerate the development of new renewable energy resources for TEP’s grid that produce enough energy to match 100% of the data center’s energy consumption — at the data center’s cost.�

But Lesher said a mutual agreement on the specific details of such commitments hasn’t been reached.

“Of primary issue is the lack of specificity on exactly how future new clean energy generation would be developed and paid for, the time frame for generation, the dollar amount of investment, and the best method for obtaining third-party validation of the proposed approach,� Lesher wrote to the Board of Supervisors.

Beale is also committing to invest $15 million in Pima County, it says in the letter, “to support local education, workforce development, and long-term community growth.�

“The community investment initiative will launch with a $5 million scholarship fund designed to support STEM education and trade school training in Pima County,� Beale says. “An additional $10 million will be allocated in future phases of the project for community benefit projects identified in collaboration with Pima County leadership. These investments will be tailored to local priorities and will provide long lasting benefits for county residents, such as digital equity investments and fiber infrastructure expansions.�

Lesher, in her memo to the Board of Supervisors, said these commitments were reached following a series of meetings between county administrators and Beale in recent months. She says the county suggested options and examples of “potential benefit projects� in September, and that Beale “indicated a preference for clean energy generation and work development options, which became the key focus of subsequent discussions.�

But she wrote that “while Beale states in their letter that details will be captured in a future agreement instrument, at this time there is no specificity on how the Beale commitments would be incorporated into an appropriate form of enforceable agreement to ensure future compliance.�

Beale said in the letter that it plans to finalize acquiring the property, which the Board of Supervisors approved selling to it in June, “and subsequently begin construction� by the end of the year. This is despite Pima County having “unresolved questions at this time,� Lesher said in her memo.