Wednesday, July 22, 2026

$19.6B in Signed Leases: Texas Absorbs the Volume Others Ban

New York banned hyperscale outright, Monterey Park voted 86% to prohibit datacenters, and Seattle froze anything above 20 MW. Texas took the volume instead, absorbing $19.6B in signed leases behind clean permitting and behind-the-meter power, and the developers who lock jurisdiction and self-supply now are the ones building.

Today's Lead

Two Texas gigawatt-scale campuses hit major milestones the same week. Crusoe and Lancium are starting Q3 2026 construction on a 1 GW grid-connected AI campus in Childress County, their second Texas deployment after Abilene energized in a year and expanded to 1.2 GW. Meanwhile Hut 8 locked full commercial occupancy at its 1 GW Beacon Point campus in Nueces County, signing a second 15-year, $9.8B lease for 352 MW that doubles its anchor tenant's footprint to 704 MW and brings campus-level base-term contract value to $19.6B, rising to $50.2B if renewal options are exercised, all backstopped by investment-grade counterparties.

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NATIONAL CONTEXT

The cost-shift fight is moving on two federal tracks. The House Energy and Commerce Committee cleared the Ratepayer Protection Act 52-0, directing state regulators to consider standards requiring 100 MW-plus loads to cover their own generation, transmission, and distribution upgrades. Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.) testified that 36 states plus D.C. already have or are building large-load cost-allocation methods; Virginia's tariff makes data centers cover 85% of new T&D capacity costs.

FERC moved harder. On June 18, 2026, it issued Section 206 show-cause orders to all six regional grid operators, giving each 60 days to defend or rewrite large-load tariffs. In PJM, 95% of 130 large-load projects socialized over $4B in annual upgrade costs across ratepayers, and the December capacity auction cleared at the $333.44/MW-day cap. Separately, New York enacted the first statewide hyperscale moratorium, Monterey Park became the first California city to ban data centers by vote (86%), and Seattle froze new facilities above 20 MW. The pattern for developers: jurisdictions that price and permit cleanly win the volume others can't absorb.

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Power

Behind-the-Meter Becomes the Default, Not the Backup

BloombergNEF nearly doubled its 2035 U.S. demand forecast to 194 GW, pushing data centers toward 20% of national load. With interconnection queues holding a 2,060 GW backlog and averaging five-year waits, developers are self-supplying: BNEF tracked 124 GW of announced on-site gas, and Chevron-Microsoft's 2.67 GW West Texas facility shows private generation bypassing queue risk. Texas permitting velocity and ERCOT's acceptance of behind-the-meter solutions are the structural moat against transmission-gridlocked rivals.

Bottom line: developers who lock self-supply and permitting jurisdiction now build faster than anyone betting on grid access; watch execution risk, since Stargate Abilene and Colossus 1 both reported performance shortfalls after energizing.

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Technology

ERCOT Compliance as a Competitive Move

Crusoe and ON.energy are deploying 5 GW of AI UPS™ across multiple hyperscale campuses starting in 2026. The medium-voltage system isolates GPU load swings from the grid and has been validated against ERCOT's Large Load Interconnection standards, complying with NOGRR 282 and Low Voltage Ride-Through protocols before those requirements are formalized. PJM's first-ever backup-generator warnings during July's heat wave, with unrestricted demand hitting an all-time 168,158 MW, show why grid operators now count dispatchable on-site generation in the reliability stack.

Bottom line: developers deploying voltage-stabilizing tech ahead of ERCOT mandates remove interconnection uncertainty and help shape the rules; those who wait inherit whatever gets written.

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Water

The Offset Race Starts Before the Permit

Google says it has committed $500M to replenish more freshwater than it consumes by 2030, targeting 165 projects across 97 watersheds and 19 billion gallons annually. The design lesson is showing up in Texas builds: Crusoe-Lancium's Childress campus uses closed-loop nonevaporative cooling, and DataBank's Kevin Ooley (CEO effective January 2027) says a several-hundred-thousand-square-foot closed-loop facility uses about as much water as five households. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) flagged the federal bill's blind spot bluntly: water, not electricity cost-shifting, will shape site selection.

Bottom line: any campus that can't answer where its water comes from and goes will hit permitting friction; early movers locking offsets avoid a future market where restoration credits are scarce and priced out.

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Politics

Opposition Now Organizes Before a Project Exists

In Red Oak, 20 miles south of Dallas, residents led by retired Marine Elda Jazmin Villegas are pushing back after the city rezoned 830 acres for a data center campus. The pre-emptive pattern is spreading: Lawrence, Kansas, is organizing against projects that don't exist yet, and Roseville, California, drew a moratorium request over zoning language permitting "data center infrastructure" with no tenant identified. More than 430 Facebook opposition groups now count over 525,000 members nationally.

Bottom line: phantom ambiguity fuels maximal opposition, while projects with specifics, berming, noise limits, local hiring, and property protections, attract manageable engagement; the developers who bring benefit-sharing to the first meeting avoid litigation and zoning delays that cost far more than proactive engagement.

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Sources we cited

15 articles across 14 publishers · 334 reviewed today

[1]Construction Equipment Guide
Crusoe, Lancium Partner On Data Center Campus
Jul 21, 2026·Crusoe, a vertically integrated AI infrastructure provider, and Lancium, an energy technology and infrastructure company, announced on July …
[2]PR Newswire
Hut 8 Fully Commercializes 1 GW Beacon Point AI Data Center Campus with Second 352 MW IT Lease, Bringing Campus-Level Base-Term Contract Value to $19.6 Billion
Jul 20, 2026·15-year, 352 MW IT lease doubles the existing high-investment-grade tenant's contracted capacity to 704 MW Total contracted IT capacity acr…
[3]Daily Energy Insider
House Energy and Commerce Advances Seven Energy Bills Aimed at Data Center Costs, Grid Modernization, and Pipeline Safety; Ratepayer Protection Act Clears 52-0
Jul 21, 2026·House Committee on Energy and Commerce | Full Committee Markup — July 20–21, 2026 The House Committee on Energy and Commerce advanced seven…
[4]Substack (Avanza Energy)
The 60-Day Clock: FERC Just Forced Six Grid Operators to Rewrite the Rules for Every Data Center Over 20 MW
Jul 21, 2026·$163 billion. That is the cumulative cost PJM ratepayers face from 2028 through 2033 if the current interconnection system continues unchang…
[5]Washington Examiner
Bill to protect households from data center energy costs advances in House
Jul 21, 2026·A House of Representatives panel advanced a bipartisan bill requiring large-load users such as data centers to cover the costs of grid upgra…
[6]capradio.org
Roseville has no data center proposal but it has a data center fight
Jul 17, 2026·A City of Roseville Open Space sign and no-trespassing warnings mark the fence line at the Phillip Road site on July 9, 2026. The city owns …
[7]Latitude Media
BNEF nearly doubled its forecast for US data center power demand
Jul 21, 2026·The 2035 outlook marks an 83% jump since December, despite development risks like local opposition. The post BNEF nearly doubled its forecas…
[8]Energy News Beat
Data Center Growth on Track to Absorb a Fifth of US Power Use by 2035: Nuclear Had Better Be Implemented Before We Get There
Jul 21, 2026·The explosive growth of data centers, driven primarily by artificial intelligence, is reshaping America’s electricity landscape. High-end pr…
[9]Datacenter Knowledge
Spain’s $3.4B AI Campus Skips the Queue with On-Site Generation
Jul 21, 2026·The planned 300 MW AI campus in Spain would rank among Europe’s largest as developers pursue fast-track approval and an on-site power strate…
[10]Crusoe
Crusoe and ON.energy to Deploy 5 GW of AI UPS™ at Multiple Hyperscale Campuses
Jul 21, 2026·MIAMI and DENVER — July 21, 2026 — Crusoe, the AI factory company, and ON.energy today announced a partnership to power the next generation …
[11]Datacenter Knowledge
PJM Issued First Backup-Generator Warnings During Heat Wave
Jul 20, 2026·The new warnings process saw its first operational use as PJM neared record demand, but the grid operator says no large-load backup generato…
[12]TechRepublic
Google Bets Water Stewardship Can Ease AI Data Center Concerns
Jul 21, 2026·Google wants to replenish the water its data centers consume. Image: Generated via Google’s Nano Banana Google plans to replenish more fres…
[13]observer.com
Inside DataBank’s Third Wave: Kevin Ooley on Water, Power and What Happens After the A.I. Gold Rush
Jul 20, 2026·Kevin Ooley has spent 15 years watching other people misunderstand what he does for a living. For most of that time, even his own family did…
[14]Dallas News
Red Oak embraced data centers. Now neighbors are pushing back
Jul 22, 2026·RED OAK — Elda Jazmin Villegas’ dining room transformed into a war room overnight. The room started as a meeting spot for dozens of residen…
[15]The New Lede
The Kansas community fighting data centers before they arrive
Jul 22, 2026·Julie Zenderoudi

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