10-Year Data Center Investment & Development Model
Hypothetical 20 MW development · Two independent 10 MW phases
- Starting capacity
- 20 MW
- Illustrative CapEx
- $240M
- Development phases
- 2
- Investment horizon
- 10 years
For modeling practice only. The $12 million per MW assumption is illustrative and is not an estimate of any specific LightEdge, customer, facility, or real-world project.
This hypothetical case study was developed for educational and portfolio purposes. All financial assumptions are illustrative or derived from appropriately cited public sources. It does not use confidential employer, customer, facility, pricing, capacity, or internal financial information.
Project thesis
This case study evaluates the economics of developing a hypothetical 20 MW data center over two 10 MW phases. The model examines how construction timing, lease-up, operating performance, and terminal valuation interact to drive project returns over a 10-year investment horizon.
01 / Key assumptions
Only capacity, horizon and illustrative CapEx are supplied. Enter operating, valuation and timing assumptions; use zero explicitly for excluded costs. Edits stay in this browser session. Download your assumptions before leaving.
- Total capacity · calculated
- 20 MW
- Development budget · calculated
- $240,000,000
- Phases
- 2
- Horizon
- Year 0 + 10 years
Review 20 input checks
- Discount rate: enter a value from 0 to 1.
- Exit EBITDA multiple: enter a value from 0 to 100.
- Selling cost: enter a value from 0 to 1.
- Revenue rate: enter a value from 0 to 1000000000.
- Revenue escalation: enter a value from -0.5 to 1.
- Other annual revenue per leased MW: enter a value from 0 to 1000000000.
- PUE: enter a value from 1 to 3.
- Power price: enter a value from 0 to 100.
- Effective cash tax rate: enter a value from 0 to 1.
- Working capital share: enter a value from 0 to 1.
- Maintenance CapEx per available MW: enter a value from 0 to 1000000000.
- Phase 1: enter an availability year from 1 to exit year.
- Phase 1: complete all CapEx percentages (0–100%).
- Phase 1: complete all Lease percentages (0–100%).
- Phase 1: complete all Utilization percentages (0–100%).
- Phase 2: enter an availability year from 1 to exit year.
- Phase 2: complete all CapEx percentages (0–100%).
- Phase 2: complete all Lease percentages (0–100%).
- Phase 2: complete all Utilization percentages (0–100%).
- Complete each named operating cost; percentage costs must be 0–100%. Enter zero explicitly to exclude a cost.
02 / Development timeline
Each phase has its own expenditure schedule and availability year. Availability begins at the start of that year; all development spending must finish in earlier years. Year 0 is the initial investment date and Years 1–10 are annual end-period cash flows. No equal phasing is imposed.
Enter the missing assumptions to calculate this schedule. No market pricing or unentered financial results are supplied.
03 / Capacity & lease-up
Pre-leasing records contracted capacity only. Revenue and power usage start when the phase is available. Leased MW can exceed available MW during pre-leasing; unleased operating capacity excludes those pre-leases. After exit, the model stops operating the asset.
Enter the missing assumptions to calculate this schedule. No market pricing or unentered financial results are supplied.
¹ Contracted MW / total phase capacity. ² Utilized MW / available MW. Editable utilization above is utilized / leased MW.04–06 / Revenue, operating expenses & EBITDA
IT energy = utilized MW × 1,000 × 8,760. Facility energy = IT energy × PUE; power cost = facility energy × price / kWh. PUE already includes cooling electricity. The separate cooling-service line must exclude electricity to avoid double counting. Full-year operations begin in the availability year.
Enter the missing assumptions to calculate this schedule. No market pricing or unentered financial results are supplied.
07 / Unlevered free cash flow
EBITDA − effective cash taxes − development CapEx − maintenance CapEx − change in working capital. Cash taxes use an explicitly entered effective rate on positive EBITDA by phase; this simplified proxy does not model tax depreciation or loss carryforwards. No debt, interest, debt draws or repayment is included.
Enter the missing assumptions to calculate this schedule. No market pricing or unentered financial results are supplied.
08–09 / Exit valuation & investment returns
Exit value uses consolidated exit-year EBITDA × the user’s exit multiple, less selling costs. A positive multiple requires positive terminal EBITDA. Working capital is released separately at exit. No disposal tax is modeled; selling-cost assumptions are not tax estimates. Earlier exit stops all subsequent operations and cannot precede either phase’s availability.
Enter the missing assumptions to calculate this schedule. No market pricing or unentered financial results are supplied.
Returns methodology
NPV discounts annual cash flows to Year 0 using the entered project discount rate. IRR is reported only for conventional outflows followed by inflows; multiple sign reversals or a missing sign change produce N/A. MOIC = sum of positive net investor cash flows / absolute sum of negative net investor cash flows. Thus invested capital includes net operating deficits and may differ from gross development spend. Payback is fractional-year recovery of cumulative unlevered FCF that remains nonnegative through exit, excluding exit proceeds and released working capital. Capacity pricing escalates from Year 1, including during a later phase’s construction. All values are nominal USD.
10 / Scenario analysis
Scenario overlays are USER INPUT. All begin neutral (1.00x and no timing shift), so upside and downside are identical until you edit them. A lease-ramp factor changes each annual contracted share, capped at 100%; it does not alter the first availability year. Construction delays shift both expenditure and operating ramps. Invalid scenarios are withheld.
Enter the missing assumptions to calculate this schedule. No market pricing or unentered financial results are supplied.
11 / Investment sensitivities
Three two-variable matrices. Rows and columns apply 0.90x / 1.00x / 1.10x stress factors to your base inputs; these are analytical perturbations, not market assumptions. Lease-up speed means scaling the independent annual contracted ramps, capped at 100%, without bringing capacity online earlier.
Enter the missing assumptions to calculate this schedule. No market pricing or unentered financial results are supplied.
12 / Interactive model dashboard
Infrastructure investment committee report
Six-page report specification. No live dashboard is connected. The website engine supplies the financial results; Power BI will visualize the exported tables.
- Executive overview
Capacity, illustrative CapEx, horizon, NPV, IRR and MOIC. Revenue / EBITDA trend, annual unlevered FCF, capacity utilization and CapEx by phase. Single-select scenario.
- Development
Stacked annual CapEx by phase, category breakdown, construction / available timeline, and cumulative investment.
- Capacity & lease-up
Available versus leased MW, utilization trend, independent phase ramps, and the capacity-to-unleased bridge.
- Operating performance
Revenue, EBITDA, margin and power KPIs; revenue / EBITDA combo chart, expense breakdown, facility energy, PUE and power cost per utilized MW.
- Investment returns
NPV, IRR, MOIC, payback and exit value; annual and cumulative cash flow, plus a cash-realization bridge.
- Scenario & sensitivity
Base / upside / downside comparisons, construction-cost / lease-ramp IRR heatmap and construction-cost / exit-multiple NPV heatmap. Highlight power and terminal-value risk.
13 / Investment conclusion
No investment conclusion is available until the assumption register and phase schedules are complete. Priority diligence questions are construction cost and timing, lease-up, power economics and exit valuation.
This hypothetical case study was developed for educational and portfolio purposes. All financial assumptions are illustrative or derived from appropriately cited public sources. It does not use confidential employer, customer, facility, pricing, capacity, or internal financial information.
What this demonstrates
- Infrastructure Finance
- Data Center Economics
- Financial Modeling
- Capital Budgeting
- Development Modeling
- Lease-Up Analysis
- Revenue Forecasting
- Operating Forecasting
- NPV
- IRR
- MOIC
- Exit Valuation
- Sensitivity Analysis
- Power BI data preparation
Power BI report publication and the Excel attachment remain pending. The calculation engine and structured export layer are implemented.
This project combines financial modeling with prior exposure to mission-critical data center operations to evaluate infrastructure through both an operating and capital-allocation lens.
Download / evidence
The JSON package includes the model assumptions, disclosures, dimensions, facts and scenario validity register. CSV files contain the selected table; use them together with the assumptions and specification. Invalid scenarios are identified and omitted from calculated facts.
Excel Financial Model
Not yet attached · A reviewed public artifact can be attached here when available.
Power BI Dashboard
Not yet attached · A reviewed public artifact can be attached here when available.
PDF Investment Case
Not yet attached · A reviewed public artifact can be attached here when available.
Power BI PDF Export
Not yet attached · A reviewed public artifact can be attached here when available.
For modeling practice only. The $12 million per MW assumption is illustrative and is not an estimate of any specific LightEdge, customer, facility, or real-world project.