Saturday, September 26, 2026

Google Puts BESS and LVDC on Record as the Gigawatt Campus Standard

Google puts BESS and LVDC on the record for campuses past 1 GW as Oregon's full-cost vote hits November 13 and Medina's 1,600 MW lands on Docket 58317. Developers who underwrite storage, file complete TWDB responses, and shape that docket keep the energization dates others miss.

Today's Lead

Google is turning AI campuses into grid partners, and Tom Garvens, vice president of advanced technology innovation at Google, put the stack on the record at Data Center World Power in Houston. Token processing hit 3 quadrillion monthly as of May 2026, a sevenfold jump in a year, while utility transmission still takes years; Google's answer is liquid cooling, low-voltage DC, battery storage as the grid interface, peak-shaping contracts, and Open Compute Project standards shared with Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia. Texas developers still underwriting pure utility offtake without co-invested generation, storage, or demand-response design are competing for the scarcest capacity.

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NATIONAL CONTEXT

Oregon is writing the hardest cost-allocation deal yet for large loads. Pacific Power will charge new data centers for full marginal generation, storage, transmission, and distribution costs tied to their load, even when those assets also serve other classes; the Oregon Public Utility Commission votes November 13, and the Data Center Coalition is expected to appeal. Portland General Electric's earlier peak-contribution model already produced a roughly 30% rate jump for its data center class while residential rates fell.

Wastewater and stormwater enforcement is widening outside Texas. Cheyenne halted acceptance of discharge tied to Meta's $800M, 960-acre Wyoming campus after city tests flagged Cupriavidus gilardii in 801,000 gallons; Virginia has brought multi-site enforcement, Georgia's Flint Riverkeeper has announced plans to sue QTS over alleged metals and sediment into the Flint River, and Waterkeeper Alliance says 80% of its data center campaigns now center on discharge pollution. In Pennsylvania, the Indiana County Conservation District issued two PAG-02 stormwater general permits for the Homer City AI data center and power complex, appealable within 30 days, as the state PUC tees a November 17 technical conference on utility costs from AI loads. Eastern Montana's first large play, Quantica Infrastructure's Big Sky Campus near Broadview, targets 1,100 MW with first building online aimed at 2029 and an interconnection request up to 7,235 MW at NorthWestern Energy.

[2]·[3]·[4]·[5]·[6]

Power

NEW: Grid-interactive design sets the Texas build standard

Google's Houston brief makes the protocol plain: backup diesel doesn't scale past about 1 GW, BESS does, and cutting intermediate AC-DC-AC conversions alone yields about 1.5% efficiency by running 54 VDC rack-level backup. Garvens stressed vertical integration across chips, servers, racks, and facilities so a gigawatt campus of hundreds of thousands of chips doesn't become a grid threat. Site selection is shifting toward remote land with available power, including small towns where the campus is the primary employer, while Google co-invests with utilities on capacity.

Separately, Oracle invoked force majeure on Project Jupiter, the 2.4 GW STACK Infrastructure campus in Dona Ana County, New Mexico, tied to OpenAI and a Bloom Energy fuel-cell microgrid; Blue Owl put up $3B equity against an $18B debt facility, and pieces of that debt have traded below 90 cents on the dollar. Power procurement timing and local permits now price the capital stack more than headline compute demand.

Bottom line: underwrite storage, LVDC, and signed demand-response paths before you underwrite energization dates.

[1]·[7]·[8]

Water

UPDATE: Survey compliance now gates permits and queue work

Attorney General Ken Paxton's office is investigating hundreds of data center developments across 18 counties (Harris, Montgomery, Travis, Dallas, Tarrant, Smith, Bexar, Tom Green, Potter, Randall, Lubbock, Midland, Ector, Wichita, Victoria, Brazos, Nueces, El Paso) for failure to return Texas Water Development Board water-use surveys. Fewer than 30% of operators responded; non-return is a Class C misdemeanor and blocks TCEQ permits, amendments, renewals, and TWDB financial assistance until cured. Governor Greg Abbott set an October 14 TWDB compliance update and ordered TCEQ to hold new data center permits until the ERCOT interconnection audit and required information flows finish, with TCEQ reporting to the Governor's office by October 19, 2026.

TWDB surveys feed the 50-year water plan ($174B over 50 years) and still miss pipeline projects not yet built, so planning gaps remain even after catch-up filings. A University of Texas at Austin estimate puts current data center use under 0.5% of statewide water, with 2040 paths at 3 to 9% baseline or 1 to 2% under best-practice efficiency. Discharge composition is the next pressure surface: PFAS, metals, and construction flush water are already drawing multi-state enforcement, so Texas counties with active opposition will inspect pretreatment and contractor performance harder.

Bottom line: file complete TWDB responses now; incomplete surveys are already pricing interconnection and TCEQ timing.

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Politics

NEW: Medina County puts 1,600 MW on the Docket 58317 record

Debra Ann Roach filed public comment with the Public Utility Commission of Texas on September 23, 2026, under Control No. 58317 Item 82, flagging seven proposed and active Medina County projects totaling at least 1,600 MW of stated electrical demand and pressing for stronger SB 6 transparency on power, water, and ratepayer exposure: - CyrusOne: $500M, 244 acres, 400 MW with on-site gas generation - Tract / Medina Technology Park: 265 acres, 500 MW - Rowan Project Cinco: $900M, 440 acres, 300 MW, up to 10 buildings - El Camino (Texas Energy Group): 525 acres, 800 MW, 400 MW on-site generation - Microsoft SAT89/SAT90, SAT93/SAT94, and SAT80-SAT85: large square footage filings with demand mostly unspecified; SAT93/SAT94 shows identical 245,000 sq ft paired with a $350M cost figure that doesn't reconcile cleanly across registrations

Roach, a well owner, centers disclosure gaps on interconnection visibility, cooling and generation water withdrawals often held behind NDAs, and inconsistent project data. Rural opposition here is a paperwork and verification fight inside an open PUCT docket, not abstract anti-growth politics. Oregon's full-cost pass-through heading to a November 13 vote is the out-of-state mirror on who carries marginal grid cost; Texas still has no separate data center rate class, so Docket 58317 is where operators either shape verification rules or inherit them.

Bottom line: publish MW, water, wastewater, and queue position into 58317 before the record hardens without you.

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Sources we cited

13 articles across 13 publishers · 392 reviewed today

[1]Datacenter Knowledge
Google’s Grid-Interactive AI Data Centers: From Backup to Grid Partner
Sep 25, 2026·At Data Center World Power, Google’s Tom Garvens detailed how full-stack design, LVDC power, BESS, and liquid cooling are reshaping hypersca…
[2]Eurasia Review
Pacific Power To Charge New Oregon Data Centers For All Costs Associated With Growing Energy Need
Sep 23, 2026·File photo of a data center facility near Boardman, Oregon. (Photo by Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle) By Oregon Capital …
[3]Good Good Good News
New data centers in Oregon will be charged for all costs associated with growing energy need
Sep 24, 2026·Oregon’s second largest investor-owned electric utility could soon directly assign the costs of new energy projects and infrastructure neede…
[4]The Guardian
US datacenters face further backlash over wastewater pollution
Sep 8, 2026·From rare bacteria to ‘forever chemicals’, a series of cases of violations or alleged pollution has prompted alarm When officials in Wyomin…
[5]PA Environment Digest Blog
Indiana County Conservation District Issues 2 PAG-02 Stormwater General Permits For Homer City A.I. Data Center/Power Plant Complex In Indiana County
Sep 25, 2026·Questions about these permits should be directed to the Indiana County Conservation District at 724-471-4751. Anyone aggrieved by this acti…
[6]Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Power, housing and public opinion: The hurdles between eastern Montana and its first data center
Sep 26, 2026·Data centers have been a divisive point of conversation throughout most of 2026, but as they continue proliferating across the nation, one t…
[7]Bisnow
Oracle Project Delays Raise Concerns On Debt-Heavy AI Data Center Deals
Sep 25, 2026·Billions of dollars of debt are tied to artificial intelligence data center campuses that are becoming increasingly unpopular, and delays on…
[8]24/7 Wall St.
Bloom Energy Jumps 8% as Oracle Reaffirms 2.4 GW Fuel Cell Contract After Force Majeure Notice
Sep 25, 2026·Oracle just told investors that its massive fuel cell contract is safe, yet it quietly filed legal protection against the very project that …
[9]Foley & Lardner LLP
Texas Escalates Data Center Oversight with Attorney General Water-Use Investigation
Sep 24, 2026·On September 24, the Texas Attorney General’s office announced an investigation into hundreds of data center developments across the state, …
[10]Yahoo
Texas Attorney General's Office investigating data center developments for not submitting water usage information
Sep 24, 2026·Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating data center developments that are not cooperating with the state's water development boar…
[11]Dallas Express
Paxton Launches Investigation Into Texas Data Centers Over Water Reporting
Sep 24, 2026·Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into hundreds of data center developments across the state to determine whet…
[12]Parametric Architecture
Texas Freezes Data Center Permits Until Grid Audit Ends
Sep 25, 2026·Texas has long sold itself as open for business. Cheap land, relatively low regulation, and an independent grid made the state a magnet for …
[13]PUCT Interchange Filings
PUCT Control No. 58317 Item 82: Too Many Data Centers in Medina County
Sep 23, 2026·Filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas on 2026-09-23. Control Number: 58317 Item Number: 82 Item Type: COM Utility Type: O Filing…

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