The developers behind Project Jupiter, the massive OpenAI and Oracle data center campus under construction in Southern New Mexico, on Monday announced they would replace their plans to build gas turbines and diesel generators with a power source that would “dramatically reduce water use and protect local air quality.”

In a joint announcement, Oracle and Project Jupiter developer BorderPlex Digital Assets announced plans to build a single microgrid — an independent energy source that doesn’t tie into an existing grid — that will draw power from fuel cells as opposed to combustion.

The announcement said Bloom Energy, a company that manufactures solid oxide fuel cells, will “fully power” the microgrid. Bloom provides onsite electricity for data centers, semiconductor manufacturing and large utilities, according to the company.

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“Project Jupiter started with a belief that Doña Ana County could become a Tier 1 industrial engine for New Mexico,” BorderPlex Digital Assets Chair Lanham Napier said in a statement. “We said we could help bring cleaner energy, stronger infrastructure, more jobs and new investment to southern New Mexico, and that vision is becoming reality. With this announcement, Project Jupiter is becoming a platform for better jobs, stronger infrastructure, and generational opportunity in a region with the talent, work ethic, and ambition to help lead New Mexico’s next chapter of growth.”

A notice of air quality permit application filed in the Las Cruces Sun News shows that the new microgrid proposal would emit fewer greenhouse gases than the prior plans — but critics say the figures are still exceedingly high.

Source New Mexico previously reported that plans for Project Jupiter’s on-site gas plants would emit more greenhouse gases than Albuquerque and Las Cruces combined, at more than 14 million tons per year. The figures were so high that climate advocates assumed they were typos. The new notice puts that figure at 10 million tons per year — a nearly 30% reduction.

“I don’t know that this is the clean energy solution that they’re saying it’s going to be,” New Mexico Environmental Law Center staff attorney Kacey Hovden, who’s involved in active litigation against Doña Ana County officials regarding Project Jupiter, told Source New Mexico.

While state environmental officials weighed the developer’s previous applications for air quality permits, an anonymous, out-of-state group undertook a massive advertising campaign that asked New Mexicans to support building a gas plant to power Project Jupiter. The New Mexico State Ethics Commission last week announced that it’s suingthe group for allegedly violating the state Lobbyist Regulation Act.

New Mexico Environment Department officials previously pushed back their deadline to July to make a decision on whether to issue air quality permits for the proposed gas plants.

The New Mexico Environment Department did not respond to requests for comment on whether the previous deliberations over Project Jupiter’s proposed gas plants are now irrelevant. The notice filed in the Las Cruces Sun News said developers anticipated filing a new application Monday with NMED’s Air Quality Bureau.