Water, Not Power, Will Decide Who Wins the Texas Data Center Race

Black Mountain Power's 430-acre data center just cleared Fort Worth zoning unanimously, but CEO Rhett Bennett couldn't specify how much water the facility will consume. That's the Texas data center story in miniature: 6.5 GW under construction, a real shot at overtaking Northern Virginia by 2030, and no regulatory framework for the resource that'll actually run out first. A single midsized facility drinks 300,000 gallons daily, and as Margaret Cook of the Houston Advanced Research Center put it, communities permitting these projects are "gambling against being able to get new water from future State Water Plans." SB 6 gave ERCOT emergency load-shedding authority over 75 MW+ users, but nothing equivalent passed for water, leaving the PUC's upcoming rulemaking to sort out a competition where the binding constraint isn't on anyone's scorecard yet.