North America's Data Center Reckoning: Growth Meets Grid Reality

North America remains the largest data center market in the world, and the numbers keep proving it. Duke Energy has grown its electric service agreement pipeline by 2.7GW to 7.6GW this year, with 5GW already under construction. Amazon has acquired an 8,000-acre site in Pecos, Texas, to build what could become the largest natural gas plant in the US, generating up to 7.65GW behind the meter, alongside 1.8GW of battery storage and 750MW of solar. Fermi America's 17GW Project Matador near Amarillo will eventually combine gas, solar, wind and nuclear power on one campus, backed by a 2.6GW plant developed with Hillcore Energy Capital.

But growth is now running directly into regulatory reality. ERCOT is reviewing over 474GW of connection requests, roughly 90% of it data center load and more than five times Texas's peak demand, prompting Governor Abbott to order a full PUCT and ERCOT audit of every project in the queue. Fort Worth has unanimously advanced a 90-day construction moratorium. The Cherokee Nation has banned new hyperscale developments on tribal land after 64% of a citizen poll opposed them. The Tennessee Valley Authority has repriced data centres out of its manufacturing rate class entirely, adding roughly 10% to wholesale costs and a $1.5 million-per-megawatt upfront capacity charge. Pennsylvania's new GRID Executive Order strips AI projects out of fast-track permitting until developers commit to full infrastructure cost coverage and community engagement, and New Jersey now requires public, twice-yearly disclosure of every facility's water and energy use.

Not every operator is choosing the gas-heavy route. Clearway has walked away from a gas-powered data center project on federal land in Nevada, citing strategic misalignment with its clean-energy focus, even after securing major solar PPAs with Google and Microsoft. Google itself has signed its second Oklahoma solar PPA of the year, this time 155MW with RWE. And new supply chain pressure is building from Washington too, with a fresh 15% tariff on polysilicon products aimed at rebuilding US semiconductor and solar manufacturing capacity.

Canada, meanwhile, is taking a different tack entirely. Ontario's new Data Center Playbook is designed to attract investment while keeping Canadian data in Canada, built around economic development, digital sovereignty and community benefit rather than financial incentives.

The throughline across the region is clear. Site selection, power strategy and stakeholder engagement are no longer separate workstreams; they're the same, and the operators and delivery partners who treat them that way are the ones getting projects across the line.

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