Texas Data Center News

Oct 27, 2025

Virginia Faces New Headwinds in Data Center Growth

DCByte report: Virginia’s data center market is shifting development away from Loudoun County toward counties like Prince William, Henrico, and Culpeper because of zoning changes, power constraints, and community resistance.

Main announcement/action: The DCByte report highlights that Loudoun County’s 2025 removal of by-right zoning for data centers and Dominion Energy’s power shortages have slowed automatic approvals, prompting developers to redirect projects to counties with more flexible permitting and available land (e.g., Prince William, Henrico, Culpeper). Key facts: Loudoun zoning change (2025); Dominion contractual commitments rose from 21 GW to 40 GW in 2024; Culpeper’s Technology Zone (CTZ) supports over 1 GW and offers tax incentives.
Background and details: Counties are adopting varied responses—Fauquier requires special exceptions for campuses >50,000 sq ft in Vint Hill; Culpeper passed a zoning amendment requiring conditional use permits outside the CTZ. Several projects faced withdrawal or cancellation (e.g., Tract’s 744-acre Chesterfield development withdrawn, AWS abandoned Louisa campus) and developers are phasing construction to match incremental power availability while Dominion upgrades substations and transmission. Also noted: interest in alternative energy (e.g., plans for a small modular reactor at North Anna Power Station).

Oct 24, 2025 · RMI

PJM’s Speed to Power Problem and How to Fix It

RMI authors call on PJM to prioritize speeding interconnection so queued generators can compete and reduce soaring capacity costs.

Main action: RMI urges PJM to speed interconnection to allow queued resources to enter the market sooner; key facts: average interconnection timeline >8 years (2025) vs. 1-year expert target, capacity price spike from $29/MW-day to $330/MW-day, and total capacity bill increase from $2.2B to $16.1B (latest auction). These delays forced customers to pay an additional $13.9B to existing generators.
Background and details: PJM completed TC1 in 544 days; over 100 GW applied to TC1 and ~40 GW were studied in the first phase (article notes XX received agreements); FERC granted a 540-day independent entity variation; TC1 network upgrade costs average ~$309k/MW (far above NREL and DOE benchmarks). RMI recommends software deployment, ERIS reform, advanced transmission technologies (ATTs), and proactive transmission planning with concrete references to Pearl Street, Nira Energy, GridAstra, Quanta and related studies.

Oct 23, 2025

San Angelo Businesses Reconnect as Crews Restore Service After Downtown 2-alarm downtown fire

The City of San Angelo and utility/telecom crews are repairing critical fiber lines after two fires destroyed the former Gisselle’s Raw Furniture building and left homes and businesses without internet service.

Main action: City officials and crews from Optimum and Vexus have been repairing melted fiber and cable lines after the 2-alarm fire at Gisselle’s Raw Furniture (near North Oakes and 3rd Street); most customers were expected to be restored by Thursday evening, with crews completing permanent splicing and clean-up work on-site.
Background & details: Fire investigators, led by Fire Marshal Billy Clemons, are continuing to sift debris and have stated arson is not suspected at this time; demolition crews are expected to finish clearing the site by the end of the week, and officials asked anyone near the scene during either fire to call the San Angelo Fire Marshal’s Office at (325) 657-4358.

Oct 22, 2025

The Evolution of Data Center Cooling: From Water to Emerging Technologies

Holland & Knight partners publish a commentary on the industry shift away from traditional water and air cooling toward more sustainable data center cooling methods, driven by high-density IT loads and evolving U.S. policy incentives.

Main announcement/action: The piece recommends adoption of direct-to-chip, immersion, and hybrid cooling approaches and highlights water-use and policy constraints: 1-MW data centers can use up to 25.5 million liters/year, closed-loop systems may save ~50%–70% water, a major generative AI application uses ~500 milliliters per 10–50 replies, and local actions include the City of El Paso purchasing 70,000 acres (2016–2021) and ~200 county water-use restrictions in Texas in 2024. Sub-bullet: Event — Data Center POWER eXchange, scheduled Oct. 28 in Denver, Colorado, subject: data center power/cooling and AI infrastructure (organizer: Experience Power).
Background and implementation details: The article documents operational challenges (leaks, uneven cooling, maintenance, energy costs), legal and permitting requirements (need to secure water rights and align supply terms with tenant leases), and policy drivers (U.S. DOE and EPA standards/incentives including Energy Star for Data Centers); it also cites research on solar-powered desalination as a scalable off-grid water source.

Oct 16, 2025

Advocating for Public Power Companies: LPPC Focuses on Load Growth, FEMA Reform, and Tax-Exempt Bonds

The Large Public Power Council (LPPC) is advocating federal policy changes to address rapid electricity load growth driven by data centers, AI, and electrification, and is pushing for FEMA process reforms and updates to Treasury rules on tax-exempt bonds.

Main announcement/action: LPPC (29 member public power systems serving 30.5 million consumers across 23 states and territories) is urging Congress and federal agencies to re-examine queue processes, finance mechanisms for large loads, and FEMA procedures to accelerate infrastructure delivery; LPPC highlights that about half of its members are experiencing rapid load growth that could double over the next 10 years, with individual new customers now seeking up to 1 GW of capacity (“enough to power probably 600,000 homes”).
Background and specifics: LPPC president Tom Falcone identified specific reforms: support for the FEMA Act of 2025 (House proposal by Chairman Graves and Ranking Member Larsen) to reduce disaster grant delays, and revisions to U.S. Treasury regulations on tax-exempt bonds related to “private use” that limit long-dated contracts with customers; LPPC notes permitting, public processes, construction, and supply-chain timelines constrain how fast utilities can build.

Oct 16, 2025

Pennsylvania’s $70 Billion Race for America’s Data Centers

Pennsylvania has announced an ambitious $70 billion state-led initiative to attract major AI data center investments and related infrastructure upgrades, unveiled in July at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University.

Main announcement and projects:$70 billion initiative announced in July at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh). Key commitments include $25 billion Aliquippa steel mill redevelopment (Blackstone; joint venture with PPL Corp. on power generation), CoreWeave $6 billion for up to 300 MW in Lancaster, Energy Capital Partners $5 billion at York II Energy Center, PA Data Center Partners & Powerhouse $15 billion three-campus hub near Carlisle with 1.3 GW capacity, and Google/Brookfield 20-year repowering deal for Safe Harbor and Holtwood hydropower totaling 670 MW. The plan also includes workforce development via the Energy Innovation Center Infrastructure Academy and Meta’s $2.5 million investment to CMU’s Schwartz Center for Entrepreneurship.
Background and implementation details: The plan is state-coordinated and privately funded (not federally backed like the CHIPS Act). It focuses primarily on power delivery and grid enhancements (rather than direct data center construction), leveraging Pennsylvania’s status as the 2nd-largest U.S. natural gas producer and a major coal producer. The Google-Brookfield arrangement is a 20-year repowering commitment; other projects are announced as multi-billion-dollar investments without explicit completion timelines. Industry sources quoted include Forrester Research (Alvin Nguyen), DVM Power + Control (Bob Ricci), and DataBank (Joe Minarik).

Oct 13, 2025

NVIDIA, Partners Drive Next-Gen Efficient Gigawatt AI Factories in Buildup for Vera Rubin

NVIDIA unveiled MGX and Kyber designs at the OCP Global Summit, presenting open-standard rack and compute-tray architectures and an ecosystem for 800 VDC gigawatt-scale AI data centers.

Main announcement/action: NVIDIA announced the Vera Rubin NVL144 MGX open-architecture rack servers and previewed the NVIDIA Kyber rack generation; supporting details include: 50+ MGX partners, Kyber to connect 576 Rubin Ultra GPUs by 2027, and Vera Rubin NVL144 features 100% liquid cooling, a midplane PCB replacing cable connections, 45°C liquid cooling, and a liquid-cooled busbar with 20x more energy storage.
Background/other details: multiple ecosystem partners and implementations were described, including Foxconn’s 40-megawatt Kaohsiung-1 data center (Taiwan) built for 800 VDC, Vertiv’s 800 VDC MGX reference architecture, HPE and others adding product support for NVIDIA Kyber and Spectrum-XGS; the summit (OCP Global Summit) took place Oct. 13-16 at San Jose Convention Center, agenda topics included:
- Oct. 13-16, San Jose Convention Center — sessions and demos covering MGX rack servers, 800 VDC power delivery, liquid cooling, and Kyber rack architecture
- Ecosystem showcases from silicon, power system and cooling vendors, and cloud/service providers demonstrating implementations and reference architectures

(Notes contain factual announcements, partner lists, timelines, and event details drawn directly from the article.)

Oct 10, 2025

New Era Energy &amp; Digital, Inc. Regains Compliance With Nasdaq Listing Requirements

The Company announced it has regained compliance with Nasdaq’s market value listing requirement and will remain listed and traded under ticker NUAI.

Primary action: New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. announced that on October 10, 2025 it received formal notice from Nasdaq that it has resolved the previously disclosed deficiency under Listing Rule 5450(b)(2)(A); the previously scheduled Nasdaq Hearings Panel hearing for October 16, 2025 was cancelled, and shares will continue to trade under ticker NUAI.
Background/details: New Era is described as a developer and operator of next-generation digital infrastructure and integrated power assets; press release provides company website www.newerainfra.ai and social links (LinkedIn, X) and lists Investor Relations contact Jonathan Paterson (Jonathan.Paterson@harbor-access.com, +1 475 477 9401).

Oct 9, 2025

LandBridge Announces Solar Project Transaction with a Leading Energy Infrastructure Developer

LandBridge Company LLC has finalized the sale of a solar project and received an upfront cash payment plus rights to contingent future cash payments.

Transaction details: Sale of a 3,000-acre photovoltaic solar energy generation project located in Reeves County, Texas, with a proposed generation capacity of up to 250 MW; buyer described as an unnamed, publicly-traded energy infrastructure developer; LandBridge received an upfront cash payment and contingent future cash payments tied to developmental milestones.
Background and company details: LandBridge owns ~277,000 surface acres across Texas and New Mexico and was formed by Five Point Infrastructure LLC (a private equity firm); the company referenced potential risks and regulatory approvals in its forward-looking statements and noted filings available via the SEC.

Oct 9, 2025

Energy Vault Closes $300 Million Preferred Equity Investment with Orion Infrastructure Capital (OIC), Officially Launching &quot;Asset Vault&quot; Platform in Move to Energy Asset Management and Long-Term Asset Development

Energy Vault has announced the closing of a $300 million preferred equity investment from OIC L.P. and the launch of Asset Vault, a fully consolidated subsidiary to develop, build, own and operate energy storage assets globally.

Main announcement: Energy Vault closed a $300 million preferred equity investment with OIC L.P. to officially launch Asset Vault, a fully consolidated subsidiary that will develop, build, own and operate storage assets; the preferred equity is non-dilutive to common shareholders and includes milestones for common equity participation. The company expects to draw nearly $200 million over the next six months to commence work on two additional late-stage projects (including the 125MW / 1,000MWh Stoney Creek BESS in New South Wales, Australia).
Background and details: Asset Vault consolidates a portfolio with 3GW and 12+ GWh of projects across the U.S., Europe and Australia, including the 57 MW / 114 MWh Cross Trails BESS and the 8.5 MW / 293 MWh Calistoga Resiliency Center; projects are supported by long-term offtake agreements, ITC incentives, and project-level debt financing targeting 15%+ levered IRRs over a 20-year asset life. For investors: a virtual Investor and Analyst Day is scheduled for Wednesday October 29th, 2025 (virtual; registration via the company website: https://www.energyvault.com/rsvpinvestorday2025).

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