Texas’ governor wants to crack down on data centers

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DATA CENTERS

• Texas’ Gov. Greg Abbott releases sweeping recommendations on data centers for the Legislature to pass in the 2027 session, including requirements that new facilities add power generation to the grid and pay for their own grid costs. (Texas Tribune, Houston Chronicle)

• Dozens of local North Carolina governments have passed data center moratoriums this year, in some cases to give them more time to update planning ordinances to deal with the facilities. (Carolina Public Press)

• Democratic North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson and advocates call on state utility regulators to create a separate set of rates for data centers and other large-load customers. (WFAE)

• The El Paso, Texas, City Council rejects a proposal to begin negotiations to terminate the city’s agreement with Meta for a large data center despite public outcry and concern over its expected water use. (El Paso Times)

• Kentucky’s two largest cities — Lexington and Louisville — consider zoning regulations to limit or even ban data center development. (Kentucky Lantern, Louisville Public Media)

• Alabama residents who live on the historic Civil Rights route between Selma and Montgomery push back on a developer’s effort to build a hyperscale data center campus that would use 1.5 GW of power and up to 100,000 gallons of water per day. (Inside Climate News)

SOLAR

• States won by President Donald Trump in the 2024 election accounted for 74% of solar capacity installed in the first quarter of 2026, with Texas and Florida leading the way as solar power surpassed coal generation for the first time in May. (Houston Chronicle, Canary Media)

• North Carolina solar advocates worry state regulators’ pause on Duke Energy’s procurement of new solar farms could result in developers missing key deadlines for federal tax credits and increase costs for customers. (WFAE)

• Developer Cypress Creek Energy closes on $3.5 billion in financing for one of the biggest solar and battery projects in the U.S., the first phases of which will boast 1.6 GW of solar and 1.9 GWh of storage in Arkansas for use by an undisclosed tech firm. (Bloomberg, Renewables Now)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Texas regulators set a public hearing on proposed rules to allow fracking wastewater to be spread on farmland as the state faces an impending water crisis. (Texas Tribune)

• An old oil well that gushed more than 1.5 million gallons of toxic wastewater raises questions for Permian Basin residents about why former oil and gas wells keep blowing out. (Inside Climate News)

• The Trump administration awards $46 million to the Tennessee Valley Authority to extend the life of a Tennessee coal-fired power plant previously slated for retirement. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

• NRG begins commercial operations of 456 MW of new gas-fired units at a Texas power plant. (news release)

• Two West Virginia coal miners who died within 24 hours of one another in April are among 13 workplace fatalities in the U.S. mining sector so far this year, according to a federal agency. (WV News)

STORAGE

• The Chesapeake, Virginia, Planning Commission recommends the City Council deny a permit for a proposed battery storage facility over concerns it would change the rural nature of the area. (WHRO)

GRID

• West Virginia receives its first application to certify a behind-the-meter microgrid tied to a data center since the passage of a law to allow such facilities, but few details are available. (West Virginia Watch)

• A new Virginia law directs Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power to offer large energy customers the opportunity to participate in demand-response programs, but federal rules could limit participation. (Utility Dive)

• Federal regulators approve grid operator PJM Interconnection’s proposal to fast-track up to 10 interconnection requests a year for large, 250-MW-plus generating projects. (Utility Dive)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• EV startup Rivian begins deliveries of a midsize SUV that it eventually intends to build at a planned factory in Georgia. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

OVERSIGHT

• Republican U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia partners with Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island to streamline federal permitting, but they say the Trump administration’s antipathy toward renewable energy projects has complicated negotiations. (Politico)

COMMENTARY

• A Virginia lawyer who specializes in working with solar and storage developers explains a pending law that limits local moratoriums on solar projects but still allows project-specific denials. (Cardinal News)

• PJM’s ​“supply pipeline is bursting at the seams” with energy developers who are ready to power data centers if policymakers can streamline the construction of transmission upgrades, writes the president of the PJM P