Project dossier · Hale County, Texas

Aligned Data Centers Hale County Under construction

$5B, 540MW campus with 6 facilities in Hale County, Texas. Under construction.

Key facts

Operator: Aligned Data Centers
Size: 540 MW
Location: Hale County, Texas
Stage today: Under construction

What to do next

Next step: Under construction — pull the approved conditions and permits and hold the builder to them; an expansion or a new building reopens the record.

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What has happened so far (10 events)

2026-02-27public-comment
Aligned Data Centers held a community meeting at Interstate 27 and FM 54 north of Abernathy where executives addressed resident concerns about infrastructure, jobs, electricity and water use; Abernathy Mayor Harold Bufe said the city would not risk its drinking water and floated possible city annexation of the site. · source
2026-04-09announcement
Aligned Data Centers publicly announced Project Caprock, a 540 MW, 313-acre, six-facility data center campus in Hale County just outside Abernathy, projected to bring $5 billion into the regional economy. · source
2026-04-09construction
Aligned Data Centers broke ground on Project Caprock in Hale County, with Ryan Companies as general contractor and the first building targeted for Q1 2027. · source
2026-04-09utility
Aligned announced a partnership with Xcel Energy for Project Caprock electrical infrastructure, with Aligned building and funding the dedicated power infrastructure itself to shield local ratepayers from added costs. · source
2026-04-09environmental
Aligned said Project Caprock will use its closed-loop DeltaFlow liquid cooling system paired with air-cooled heat rejection that recirculates water, produces no wastewater, and is designed to protect the Ogallala Aquifer. · source
2026-07-18coverage
National coverage of AI data center backlash in rural Texas featured the future data center site near Abernathy as part of reporting on divisions among rural Republicans over water and power impacts. · source
2026-08-03moratorium
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed the PUCT and ERCOT to pause new data center grid interconnections statewide pending an audit — a statewide freeze affecting new-project connections including the Texas Panhandle/South Plains region where Project Caprock sits. · source
2026-08-05report
Reporting noted regulators and lawmakers still lack clear data on how much water and power data centers statewide consume. · source
2026-08-10coverage
President Trump publicly criticized Gov. Abbott data center moratorium as a mistake; Abbott responded by touting cooperation with tech companies including Meta and OpenAI. · source
2026-08-14report
Follow-up reporting found Texas data center audit still lacked specifics on scope and methodology; ERCOT indicated the audit would begin shortly after August 20 and last several months. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)

State environmental permits

Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.

Texas TCEQ — Air Permits DivisionThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
TCEQ Central RegistrySearchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

Search Hale County planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
Search Hale County property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.

Utility & grid records

The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.

ERCOT (Texas) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
Public Utility Commission of Texas — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.

Federal databases

Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.

EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site.
EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.

These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.

Around here

Texas briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in Texas

Amazon Floydada campus — Floydada (Floyd County) In review
Amazon Fort Stockton campus — Fort Stockton (Pecos County) Under construction
BCG Cedar Creek Campus — Cedar Creek (Bastrop County) Awaiting decision
Black Mountain Energy Fort Worth — Fort Worth Approved
CloudBurst San Marcos — San Marcos (Hays/Guadalupe Counties) Under construction

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Aligned Data Centers Hale County”, aigridwatch.com/projects/aligned-hale-county-tx, retrieved 2026-10-11.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.

Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).