Wednesday, 5 August 2026

An environmental review written for a solar project now underpins a federal permit for an AI data center in Boulder City, Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management signed the amended right-of-way on June 26 after the developer asked to swap the clean energy build for computing capacity in late 2025, according to Electrek. Electrek reported it as the first data center approved on BLM-managed public land, cleared by carrying over a review completed for a different project.

The permit history starts with Townsite Solar 2. Its 2023 federal right-of-way covered an 80-acre parcel inside Boulder City limits and authorized a solar farm paired with 35 MW of battery storage, per Electrek.

The electrical profile of the site flips. Solar output at the parcel was set at 19 MW. The data center is permitted to draw as much as 167 MW, equivalent to the consumption of 75,000 homes, with backup generators on site.

Bruce Sillitoe, the BLM Las Vegas field office manager, found the two proposals "substantially the same," pointing to acreage, boundaries, build schedules, and structure dimensions, according to Electrek. That determination is what let the older analysis stand in place of a new one.

Boulder City is fighting it. Its council backed an appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals in a unanimous July 14 vote, and the city wants the project halted until the appeal is resolved, Electrek reported.

What the appeal contests is the transfer of the review, not the engineering of the building. Sillitoe's comparison rests on footprint and schedule measures, while the permitted use shifts from a 19 MW generator with 35 MW of storage to a load of up to 167 MW backed by on-site generation.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered the state's utility regulator and grid operator to audit every data center moving through the interconnection queue, according to Power Magazine.

The directive covers the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and applies to each project advancing through the queue rather than a sample.

Power Magazine reported that Abbott attached a penalty to the review: developers that do not disclose ownership, financial, water, and community-impact information could be denied grid access.

The disclosure list reaches past electricity. Water use and community impact sit alongside corporate ownership and financial detail as conditions for keeping a connection request alive, per Power Magazine.

PJM Interconnection has settled on a plan intended to stop data centers from pushing other customers' utility bills higher across its 13-state territory, Canary Media reported.

According to Canary Media, PJM is the biggest grid operator in the United States. The plan targets the cost burden that data center demand places on other ratepayers in the territory, which spans 13 states.

Canary Media described the decision as one PJM reached after an extended process, framing the outcome as leaving the states to work out the details.

Residents of the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania fear that planned data centers could ruin landscapes and waterways they value, according to Inside Climate News.

The region is an ecotourism destination known for fishing, hiking and some of the purest waters in Pennsylvania, Inside Climate News reported.

The concerns cited by the outlet center on the physical footprint of the projects rather than their electricity demand: residents worry about the effect on the landscapes and the pristine waterways that draw visitors to the area.

NRG Energy unveiled the first project under its Bring Your Own Power (BYOP) structure on August 4, a 1.2-GW combined-cycle plant in Texas, according to Power Magazine.

The plant carries a price tag of USD 3.2 billion, Power Magazine reported, with a customer parent guarantee behind it. Commercial operation is targeted for late 2029.

Underpinning the build is a 15-year contract with what NRG describes as an investment-grade "leading global cloud and artificial-intelligence hyperscaler," per Power Magazine. The counterparty was not named.

The BYOP label describes the commercial arrangement rather than the technology: a large electricity customer contracts for dedicated new dispatchable capacity instead of drawing on existing supply. On the Texas project, the combination of the 15-year term and the parent guarantee places the offtake risk with the hyperscaler's parent for the bulk of the plant's early operating life.