Google Lincoln In review
Epoch AI estimates ~141 MW.
Key facts
- Operator
- Owner
- Size
- 141 MW
- Location
- Lincoln, Nebraska
- Stage today
- In review
Source
read 2026-08-14
What to do next
Next step: An application is in the record. Ask the planning office for the next hearing date and request formal notice.
What has happened so far (6 events)
- 2019-07-10filing
Agate LLC, a Delaware-based company described as a front company for an undisclosed entity, filed site plans with the Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Department for a data center with at least two buildings on approximately 590 acres at 56th and I-80 north of Lincoln. · source - 2019-08-26rezoning
The Lincoln City Council agenda included proposals by Agate LLC to annex approximately 576 acres near I-80 and Highway 77 and rezone from AG Agriculture to I-3 Employment Center District for a planned data center; council members were tight-lipped but indicated substantial economic development, and Google was widely suspected as the operator. · source - 2019-11-06filing
Agate LLC, the shell company behind the Lincoln data center, purchased approximately 600 acres northwest of the 56th Street exit on I-80 for over $18.6 million; filings projected 160 full-time employees by 2022, 480 by 2025, and 960 by 2040. · source - 2023-08-22announcement
Google announced it will build its third data center in Nebraska, located north of Lincoln at the northwest corner of 56th Street and Interstate 80; the announcement was made at Google's Papillion campus with Rep. Mike Flood, Sen. Deb Fischer, and Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird present. · source - 2026-07-20incentive
Governor Jim Pillen signed an executive order halting tax subsidies to large-scale data centers in Nebraska and established a data center task force to investigate environmental and water impacts; the article identifies the Google Lincoln facility at North 56th and Highway 77 as a $1.2 billion project with construction actively ongoing. · source - 2026-08-06coverage
Google representatives and Lincoln city leaders discussed the data center's operational status; facility manager Jake Laney said a couple hundred workers are on site, and Chief Sustainability Officer Kim Morrow said the city is not looking to add any more data centers to Lincoln for the foreseeable future. · 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.
- Nebraska Dept. of Environment & EnergyThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- Search Nebraska Dept. of Environment & Energy for this projectsearchThis state publishes no searchable permit database, so a written records request to the agency is the reliable route. Use this search only to find the right office.
County & town filings
The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.
- Search Lincoln 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 Lincoln 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.
- Southwest Power Pool (Plains) — 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.
- Nebraska Power Review Board — 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. This project's locality centres on 40.760, -96.650 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
- 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
- Nebraska briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Nebraska
- Meta Sarpy — Springfield (Sarpy County), 35 mi Under construction
- Google Omaha — Omaha, 41 mi In review
- Google Papillion — Papillion, 42 mi Under construction
- Kearney Data Center — Kearney, 127 mi Awaiting decision
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Google Lincoln”, aigridwatch.com/projects/google-lincoln, 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).