Texas Data Center Intel

Recent Texas data center news

• May 22, 2026

  Enbridge, Meta to build 365 MW/200 MW solar/storage project

  Enbridge has announced an expansion of its clean energy partnership with Meta to develop the first phase of the Cowboy Project in Wyoming.

  • Project details: The Wyoming phase will supply Meta data centers with 365 MW of solar and a 200 MW / 1,600 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS); Tesla will provide the batteries, Enbridge expects to invest $1.2 billion, and the project is expected to enter service by the end of 2027. Power will be delivered to Meta through Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power under Wyoming’s Large Power Contract Service (LPCS) tariff.
  • Background and agreements: The announcement expands a partnership that now totals 1.6 GW of solar, wind and storage capacity developed with Meta; Enbridge and Meta previously developed the 600-MW Clear Fork Solar, 152-MW Easter Wind, and 300-MW Cone Wind projects. The LPCS tariff (developed with Microsoft and Black Hills Energy) is open to retail customers over 13 MW and requires customer-owned, behind-the-meter dispatchable generation onsite for reliability and backup; the BESS capacity is contracted under a long-term battery tolling agreement with Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power under the same tariff.
• May 22, 2026

  Texas Powers Past Virginia in Global Data Center Rankings

  Cushman & Wakefield has announced Dallas as the No.1 primary data center market globally in its latest Global Data Center Market Comparison report.

  • Main announcement: The report ranks Dallas as the No. 1 primary data center market, followed by Atlanta, Virginia, Columbus, and Johor, and reports capacity under construction ~31.7 GW (2025) versus 12.5 GW in the prior edition; the study examined 107 global markets using 24 variables and places greater emphasis on near- and mid-term scalability and power constraints.
  • Background and details: Cushman highlights power delivery timelines (~5 years in Americas/EMEA, ~2.7 years in APAC) and the shift to bring-your-own-power/on-site generation; firms and projects cited include OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank’s Stargate (Abilene/West Texas), Meta (El Paso), Google (pledged $40 billion in US infrastructure investment) and Soluna; the note also contrasts Northern Virginia, Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, and Dublin as markets facing tighter utility and transmission constraints while Texas/ERCOT offers more developable land and generation/transmission pipeline.
• May 22, 2026

  US Adds 9.7 GWh Energy Storage Capacity in Strongest Q1 on Record

  The US energy storage sector recorded a record first quarter in 2026, installing 9.7 GWh of new capacity according to a SEIA and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence report.

  • Main announcement: The report from Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence states 9.7 GWh installed in Q1 2026, with utility-scale 7.8 GWh, C&I 648 MWh, residential 515 MWh, and a raised long-term forecast of more than 610 GWh cumulative by 2030. The article cites technology companies (Google, Meta) procuring tens of thousands of MWh of storage capacity to support AI and hyperscale data centre operations.
  • Context and details: The piece notes 467 solar and storage projects have permits pending (per SEIA analysis), highlights leading states Texas, Arizona, California, and links accelerated storage investment to energy price volatility and domestic manufacturing. It warns federal permitting delays in Washington could slow deployments and affect AI infrastructure timelines.
• May 21, 2026

  Bottlenecks Slowing BEAD: Permits, Locates, Labor, and Materials

  Fiber broadband operators said permitting backlogs, locating failures, and rising material costs are adding cost and time to BEAD construction timelines.

  • Main announcement: Fiber broadband operators reported that permitting backlogs, locating failures, and rising material costs are increasing BEAD build costs and timelines; recommended mitigations include getting six to twelve months ahead of construction and preparing 100% pre-drafted permit documents and one-year blanket permits for faster execution.
  • Background and details: Programs involved are BEAD ($42.5 billion) and RDOF (roughly $9 billion awarded in 2020); panelists noted specific material price changes such as duct pricing: $0.25/ft (pre-pandemic) → $0.75/ft (during pandemic) → $0.45–$0.50/ft (current), and cited workforce competition from data center developers for specialized fiber-construction labor.
• May 21, 2026

  From Uptime to Resilience: AI Infrastructure Changes the Data Center Risk Equation

  Zurich North America has published its 2026 U.S. report ‘Data Center Risks Right Now: 6 Critical Questions to Enable a Resilient Buildout.’

  • Main announcement: Zurich North America presents a 2026 U.S. report arguing that the AI-driven data center buildout is now an industrial megaproject combining construction, operational, power, weather, supply-chain, labor, cyber/physical, and financial risks; the report provides concrete risk framing including an illustrative three-mile, 20-building AI campus requiring ~2,000 MW and notes insured project average values rising from ~$150 million (5 years ago) to roughly $3 billion today, with upper-end projects reaching tens of billions.
  • Key details and background: The report recommends integrating lifecycle risk review, using Estimated Maximum Loss (EML) instead of full replacement value for bankability, and highlights concrete constraints including potential $200 billion annual power-generation investment needs, 2 GW reviewed project scale, turbine lead times of ~3+ years, and replacement/asset cost estimates such as $900M–$1.5B for land/construction/power/cooling for a 100 MW AI site plus $2.5B+ for servers/network/GPU; it also cites labor shortfalls (Associated Builders and Contractors: ~349,000 net new workers needed in 2026) and specific weather and equipment failure examples.
• May 21, 2026

  Google Pledges Power, Ratepayer Protections in $15B Missouri Data Center Expansion

  Google announced it will invest $15 billion in Missouri infrastructure and build a new New Florence data center while contracting to bring more than 1 GW of new generation capacity to the state.

  • Main announcement: Google will invest $15 billion in Missouri infrastructure for a New Florence data center, pay for all power used by the new facility, cover infrastructure costs directly driven by its operations, and has committed to bring more than 1 GW of new generation capacity to Missouri; Google also entered a Capacity Commitment Framework (CCF) with Ameren that moved to support development of more than 500 MW of additional capacity (it is unclear whether the 500 MW is included within the 1 GW total). The CCF has been embedded in a PSC-approved tariff (Nov. 24, 2025) signed by Google, Ameren Missouri, Evergy Metro, Evergy Missouri West, the Sierra Club, Renew Missouri, and Missouri Industrial Energy Consumers, imposing 12-to-17-year minimum service contracts, collateral equal to two years of minimum bills, and an 80% minimum monthly demand charge.
  • Background and related commitments: Google announced a $20 million Energy Impact Fund for home weatherization in counties around Kansas City and New Florence and is funding a Laborers and Contractors Training Center to train more than 2,300 construction laborers (including 1,500 apprentices) over the next two years; Google has executed 1.17 GW of 20-year PPAs with Clearway (Jan 2026), signed a hydropower framework with Brookfield (contemplating up to 3 GW nationally), and has contracted for more than 22 GW of clean energy since 2010. Ameren reported 2.2 GW of signed energy services agreements (ESAs) as of February and 3.4 GW of construction agreements in Missouri, with more than 5 GW of new generation resources planned through 2030 (including two 800-MW simple-cycle gas plants and a 2,100-MW combined-cycle plant planned for 2031).
• May 21, 2026

  How a Rare Wildflower Became a Model for Environmental Stewardship

  DataBank announced that it relocated threatened Georgia Asters discovered during construction and, in partnership with Pollinator Partnership and construction/landscape partners, established native pollinator habitat and planted a pollinator garden at two Atlanta data center facilities.

  • Main action: DataBank relocated Georgia Asters found on-site (discovered three years ago) to a protected area, replaced water-intensive sod with a native wildflower mix, and this past week planted a manicured pollinator garden at the front entrance of two Atlanta facilities with volunteers from DataBank, local community members, and representatives from the American Legion; the planting required digging more than 60 holes through dense Georgia red clay.
  • Background & partners: The effort was voluntary (no regulation required), executed with the nonprofit Pollinator Partnership, and involved DataBank’s sustainability team and construction/landscape partners Kimley Horn and Brasfield & Gorrie; the initiative is presented as part of ongoing community-relations and environmental stewardship activities across DataBank’s portfolio.
• May 20, 2026

  Distributed Data Centers Could Help With Public Trust

  A panel in Orlando (May 20, 2026) examined distributed data center architecture as a solution to AI power demand and rising local opposition.

  • Main announcement: The panel recommended distributed data centers — smaller facilities of 5 to 20 megawatts located within a 100-mile radius of users and connected by fiber — to reduce grid strain and meet inference latency needs (under 10 milliseconds). Event details:
    • Date: May 20, 2026
    • Location: Orlando
    • Agenda/subject: How distributed, fiber-connected data center architecture can resolve power constraints and community opposition to large centralized AI data centers.
  • Background and details: Panelists (Sachin Gupta of Centranet, Joshua Turiano of Blue Stream Fiber, and Sarah Davis of Fidium) cited that global AI power demand is projected to double by 2030, 70% of Americans oppose AI data centers near them (Gallup/Pew polling), and supply constraints such as the BEAD program are straining availability of fiber optic glass; the article also includes a $490/year paid subscription offer for full Fiber Connect coverage.
• May 20, 2026

  Why FAST-41 Now Covers AI Data Centers and Copper

  The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC) has expanded FAST-41 coverage to include AI-linked developments and granted FAST-41 coverage to Alaska’s Arctic copper and critical minerals project.

  • Main action: FAST-41 now explicitly covers Artificial intelligence and machine learning and High-performance computing, advanced computer hardware and software; the program has added a QTS Richmond campus (seven buildings, ~3.2 million sq ft) as its first covered data center and QTS reported nearly 4 GW of simultaneous hyperscale deployments.
  • Background and details: The Arctic project centers on copper supply for substations, transformers, switchgear, and transmission; reported constraints include transformer lead times of 18–24 months, wires/cables up 152% since 2019, switchgear up 77%, NERC projection of +224 GW summer peak demand over the next decade, Wood Mackenzie estimates of 274% and 116% demand increases for generator step-up and power transformers respectively, and regulatory measures such as Michigan’s requirement that DTE Electric use a 19-year take-or-pay structure for large-load customers.
• May 19, 2026

  Power Shift: Top Five Private Equity Investment Trends in US Energy

  Troutman Pepper Locke published an analytical report titled “Power Shift: Top Five Private Equity Investment Trends in US Energy,” summarizing 2025 deal activity and investor perspectives across power, gas, renewables, storage, nuclear, and data center-driven demand.

  • Main announcement/action: The report catalogs recent major deals and investment activity including Constellation Energy’s agreement to buy Calpine for $16.4 billion (deal due to close January 2026), Partners Group’s $2.2 billion purchase of a 1.9GW, 11-plant natural gas portfolio in California, and Pelican Energy Partners raising $450 million for a nuclear services fund (target was $300 million). It highlights data center-driven power demand (BCG: 40GW in 2024; forecast 81GW by 2028) and investor theses favoring an “all of the above” power solution and targeted infrastructure investments.
  • Background and details: The piece summarizes investor interviews and market context: private equity strategies include investing in storage/midstream rather than drilling, funding solar manufacturing (e.g., Heliene), pursuing transmission upgrades, and targeting nuclear maintenance businesses with typical equity checks of up to $40 million per transaction. It references federal policy shifts under the Trump administration (e.g., executive order to support nuclear, permitting discussions led by Energy Secretary Chris Wright) and provides deal timelines and concrete figures where available.