Black Mountain Energy Fort Worth Approved
187-acre campus with 980-MW substation off Lon Stephenson Road; approved by Fort Worth Zoning Commission in April 2026 despite neighbor opposition; city later passed a 90-day citywide data center moratorium that exempts already-approved projects.
Key facts
- Operator
- Black Mountain Energy
- Size
- 980 MW
- Acres
- 187
- Location
- Fort Worth, Texas
- Stage today
- Approved
What to do next
Next step: Approved — pivot from stopping it to a binding CBA: enforceable caps on noise, water and cost, plus a community benefit.
What has happened so far (12 events)
- 2025-01-01rezoning
Fort Worth City Council initially rezoned the 187-acre site at Lon Stephenson Road and Forest Hill Drive from agricultural to light industrial/Planned Development for the future Black Mountain data center campus. · source - 2026-03-01hearing
Fort Worth City Council tabled a request to add roughly 80 additional acres to the Black Mountain data center project pending further review. · source - 2026-03-12public-comment
A residents' meeting was held on the proposed Black Mountain Energy data center, where nearby residents raised concerns about pollution, traffic, noise and lack of communication from the project's operating partner. · source - 2026-04-08vote
Fort Worth Zoning Commission unanimously recommended City Council approval of Black Mountain's amended 187-acre site plan for a 980MW data center campus (four buildings, 2.2M sq ft, 68 ft tall, dedicated Oncor substation), with conditions including a 150-foot setback from residential zoning and closed-loop water recycling. · source - 2026-04-15environmental
Coverage noted the project still requires Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) air-quality permits, amid resident concerns about cancer rates and pollution from a nearby landfill and the proposed data center. · source - 2026-05-12hearing
Fort Worth City Council tabled its scheduled vote on the Black Mountain site plan less than three hours before the meeting, pushing the decision to June 23. · source - 2026-05-20coverage
Fort Worth Star-Telegram profiled the Black Mountain project's projected tax revenue, ERCOT grid implications, and political headwinds; CEO Rhett Bennett leads the Fort Worth-based energy consortium (Houston-based BCEI developing, Kimley-Horn engineering). · source - 2026-06-02report
Fort Worth City Council received a staff briefing on data center infrastructure and regulation ahead of further votes on the Black Mountain project and citywide policy. · source - 2026-06-23hearing
Fort Worth City Council again postponed its vote on the Black Mountain site plan, rescheduling to August 25, amid continued resident opposition over environmental, water and power impacts. · source - 2026-08-11moratorium
Fort Worth City Council voted unanimously to begin the process for a 90-day citywide data center moratorium, created an 11-member Data Center and Infrastructure Commission, and required new applicants to show PUCT/ERCOT grid interconnection approval; the moratorium exempts projects with zoning applications already filed, including Black Mountain. · source - 2026-08-12coverage
Coverage noted the moratorium would not take effect until required public hearings and commission findings were completed, with a possible final vote around February 2027 and the 90-day pause running into May 2027, extendable to August 2027. · source - 2026-08-25hearing
Fort Worth City Council is scheduled to vote on the Black Mountain 187-acre site plan, its third scheduled date after two prior postponements. · 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 Fort Worth 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 Fort Worth 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.
Recent news
39 stories tracked since 2026-07-01 across 22 outlets. 18× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. 15× Local officials are moving to pause or block the project. Most recent: “Colovore files permit for $430 million data center in Alliance area of Fort Worth” (Community Impact Newspaper, 2026-09-30).
- Colovore files permit for $430 million data center in Alliance area of Fort Worth
- ‘Decade-long battle’ and data centers: What got Fort Worth talking Sept. 21-27
- Colovore files to develop data center in Fort Worth, Texas
- $430M data center planned in Fort Worth despite fresh state regulations
- $430M data center project planned for Fort Worth, state filing shows
- $430M data center project planned for Fort Worth, state filing shows
- $430M data center project planned for Fort Worth, state filing shows
- Fort Worth weighs data center growth as residents raise concerns
- Fort Worth forms new commission to guide local data center growth
- Fort Worth, Texas, Data Center Advisory Group Takes Shape
- Here’s who will advise Fort Worth on data center strategy
- Despite moratorium calls, Fort Worth OKs massive data center plan
+27 more on the story tracker.
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 39 headlines archived.
Around here
- Fort Worth community briefing — Proposedterm not documented
- Texas briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Texas
- Aligned Data Centers Hale County — Hale County Under construction
- 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
- CloudBurst San Marcos — San Marcos (Hays/Guadalupe Counties) Under construction
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Black Mountain Energy Fort Worth”, aigridwatch.com/projects/black-mountain-fort-worth-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).