Project dossier · Broadview (Yellowstone County), Montana

Quantica Big Sky Campus In review

5,000-acre campus; NorthWestern Energy committed up to 1,000 MW to Quantica as of July 2026, with Phase I construction slated for 2026.

Key facts

Operator: Quantica Infrastructure
Size: 1,000 MW
Acres: 5,000
Location: Broadview (Yellowstone County), Montana
Stage today: In review

Source

What to do next

Next step: An application is in the record. Ask the planning office for the next hearing date and request formal notice.

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What has happened so far (27 events)

2015-01-01filing
Invenergy requested interconnection to NorthWestern Energy's Broadview substation, the earliest step in what would become the Big Sky Campus site's grid access. · source
2020-01-01financing
Broad Reach Power purchased the Broadview interconnection project from Invenergy, with Daniel Zolnikov serving as local developer. · source
2023-08-01financing
ENGIE acquired Broad Reach Power, folding the Broadview-area power project into its portfolio ahead of the Quantica spinout. · source
2024-01-01announcement
Montana Property LLC quietly acquired roughly 5,000 acres (about eight square miles) south of Broadview, later revealed as the land assembly for Quantica's Big Sky Campus. · source
2025-02-01utility
NorthWestern Energy announced a $25-30 million transmission line project tied to the Broadview substation area, with expected completion in 2028. · source
2025-07-30utility
NorthWestern Energy signed a letter of intent to serve Quantica Infrastructure's Montana data center development, committing to a Phase 1 load of 500 MW growing to 1 GW, with initial service possible as early as 2026. · source
2025-07-31hearing
Montana's Energy and Technology Interim Committee met to study the state's power generation capacity amid data-center growth, launching studies due by September 2026. · source
2025-08-01coverage
Montana Public Radio/MEIC reported NorthWestern's proposed 1,000 MW commitment is roughly equivalent to the power used to serve 800,000 homes, more than all of NorthWestern's residential customers combined. · source
2025-08-04announcement
Quantica Infrastructure introduced Big Sky Digital Infrastructure (BSDI) as its flagship Montana development platform for the 5,000-acre Big Sky Campus, with construction planned to begin in 2026. · source
2025-12-01ruling
The Montana Public Service Commission decided to keep NorthWestern Energy's letters of intent with three data-center developers confidential as trade secrets. · source
2026-01-16filing
The Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners sent a letter to the PSC advocating separate rate classifications to shield existing ratepayers from data-center-driven boom-bust risk. · source
2026-02-12environmental
AP/Montana Free Press reported Quantica does not yet hold water rights for the Broadview site and is evaluating zero-water air cooling, deep aquifer wells, treated greywater, and direct-to-chip liquid cooling. · source
2026-02-20public-comment
A coalition including Earthjustice, MEIC, NW Energy Coalition, and Honor the Earth sent a letter to the Montana PSC demanding disclosure of NorthWestern's talks with 11 additional data-center developers. · source
2026-02-23report
Daily Montanan reported NorthWestern Energy was in talks with at least 11 additional data-center entities beyond Atlas, Sabey, and Quantica, which combined could draw enough power for 1.6 million homes. · source
2026-03-01utility
Quantica's July 2025 letter of intent with NorthWestern progressed into a signed development agreement by roughly the first quarter of 2026. · source
2026-03-12protest
Broadview-area residents divided; resident Cari Olson founded Just One Montanan to push for a three-year statewide construction moratorium on data centers pending legislative action. · source
2026-03-13lawsuit
Earthjustice filed a motion before the Montana PSC on behalf of seven groups challenging the December 2025 decision keeping NorthWestern's data-center letters of intent confidential. · source
2026-05-20filing
Quantica filed interconnection applications with NorthWestern Energy seeking to expand generation capacity at the Big Sky Campus roughly seven-fold, from about 1,000 MW to 7,235 MW. · source
2026-06-12filing
Broadview resident Kassi Solberg submitted a citizen ballot initiative petition to Yellowstone County requiring two-thirds voter approval before any data center could be built or expanded. · source
2026-06-17announcement
Quantica signed an agreement with a Montana union federation covering the Big Sky Campus project, though coverage criticized it for being thin on enforceable labor details. · source
2026-06-25filing
The Yellowstone County attorney's office approved the ballot language for the citizen data-center initiative, allowing signature gathering to proceed toward the November ballot. · source
2026-06-30coverage
Daily Montanan reported on a growing citizen movement across Montana counties seeking direct voter oversight of data-center construction. · source
2026-07-09hearing
Yellowstone County commissioners held a meeting at which details of a planned lawsuit challenging the legality of the citizen data-center ballot initiative were distributed. · source
2026-07-13ruling
Yellowstone County asserted this date was the actual legal deadline for signature collection on the data-center ballot initiative, after officials said they learned of a 2025 election-statute change following contact from Quantica's attorney. · source
2026-07-28filing
Yellowstone County commissioners proposed a new policy restricting signature-gathering for citizen initiatives, amid the ongoing dispute over the data-center ballot measure. · source
2026-08-03ruling
Yellowstone County commissioners announced the true signature-gathering deadline had already passed on July 13, effectively blocking the initiative from the November ballot. · source
2026-08-15ruling
A Yellowstone County District Court judge ruled the signature-collection deadline had passed, keeping the two-thirds-voter-approval data-center initiative off the November ballot despite over 12,000 of the required 16,650 signatures collected. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)

State environmental permits

Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.

Montana DEQ — Air Quality BureauThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
Search Montana DEQ — Air Quality Bureau for this projectsearchThis state publishes no searchable permit database, so a written records request to the agency is the reliable route. Use this search only to find the right office.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

Search Broadview (Yellowstone County) planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
Search Broadview (Yellowstone County) property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.

Utility & grid records

The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.

Southwest Power Pool (Plains) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
Montana Public Service Commission — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.

Federal databases

Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.

EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site.
EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.

These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.

Around here

Montana briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Quantica Big Sky Campus”, aigridwatch.com/projects/quantica-broadview-mt, retrieved 2026-10-11.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.

Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).