Phasing
Kristal Farms is designed to scale in controlled, reversible steps. Each phase must prove three things before expanding:
- Infrastructure works (power, fiber, cooling, heat loop)
- Heat-first operations are real (community heat is prioritized in practice, not just in narrative)
- Governance and reporting are live (dashboards, committees, procedures)
Phase 1 — Prove the system (small, real, measurable)
Goal: deliver the first complete loop: hydro power → compute pad → captured heat → useful community heat.
Typical scope
- 1–2 compute pads online
- Village substation and distribution feeders commissioned
- Trunk fiber + NOC operational with basic redundancy
- Heat plant interface live (exchanger station, pumps, controls)
- Thermal storage sized for daily smoothing
- First heat deliveries to public buildings (and/or a pilot greenhouse load)
What Phase 1 should demonstrate
- Stable operations under load (no grid disruption)
- Reliable heat delivery (not “sometimes”)
- Monitoring and reporting (baseline metrics + incident logging)
- Clear procedures for curtailment and fault isolation
(See: Go / No-Go checklist and
Metrics & dashboard.)
Phase 2 — Expand utility (more heat users, more capacity)
Goal: turn the pilot loop into a community utility: broader heat coverage, stronger redundancy, and steady tenant operations.
Typical scope
- Add pads to match proven heat absorption capacity
- Extend district heat coverage:
- more public buildings
- initial residential segments where feasible
- Scale greenhouse capacity (or additional heat sinks) to keep heat-first credible
- Improve resilience:
- fiber hardening / path protection improvements
- operational redundancy for pumps and critical systems
- Formalize tenant onboarding standards and SLAs
What Phase 2 should demonstrate
- Heat-first is enforceable via operations and contracts
- Higher uptime and cleaner incident response
- Predictable operating costs and stable reporting
- Documented playbooks that can be reused at the next site
(See: Tenancy model and
Heat-first design.)
Phase 3 — Full yard scale (replicable model)
Goal: reach a mature operating state where the site is both:
- a reliable local heat utility, and
- a stable compute host that can be replicated elsewhere.
Typical scope
- Full pad yard build-out (within the site’s ecological and governance constraints)
- District heat at mature coverage targets (public + residential, if planned)
- Greenhouse and seasonal strategy sized to absorb summer heat or route it safely
- Operational excellence:
- standardized maintenance cycles
- training pipelines and local jobs
- publishable performance dashboard
What Phase 3 should demonstrate
- Stable performance across seasons
- Clear benefit distribution (community outcomes are measurable)
- Replication package: siting criteria + engineering envelope + governance template
Governance milestones (should not lag behind construction)
Phasing is not only engineering—it’s legitimacy.
Minimum governance milestones by phase:
- Phase 1: standing bodies seated, operating rules written, dashboard live
- Phase 2: conflict-handling and escalation tested; tenancy standards stable
- Phase 3: audit-ready reporting cadence; replication governance template
(See: Governance.)
Expansion rule: scale only after proof
Kristal Farms should expand only when:
- monitoring shows stable compliance (power quality, thermal, environment),
- heat-first performance is demonstrated under real stress,
- and the project can explain outcomes publicly using its own dashboard.
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