Pacifico Energy Glass Mountains data center and gas plant (proposed) Proposed
Pacifico Energy, which is developing the GW Ranch gas plant for Amazon's Pecos County campus, presented Brewster County Commissioners Court with a concept for an off-grid data center powered by gas turbines (possibly with solar and batteries) on a roughly 8,400-acre ranch in the Glass Mountains owned by James Ahern. No filing, tenant, size or development agreement yet; the company's own cost range is $5 billion to $60 billion.
Key facts
- Operator
- Pacifico Energy
- Size
- 8,400 ac
- Location
- Brewster County, Texas
- First proposed
- 2026-09-15
- Stage today
- Proposed
Source
read 2026-09-22
What to do next
Next step: Early stage. File a public-records request for the application and site plan.
What has happened so far (2 events)
- 2026-09-15meeting
Brewster County Commissioners Court special meeting, agenda item 5: 'Review and discuss presentation by Pacifico Energy; no action required.' Pacifico's senior director of development, director of land services and a water adviser attended; there was no formal presentation because the company called the project very early. · source - 2026-09-18coverage
Marfa Public Radio reported the company described an off-grid data center and gas plant employing 100 to 200 people, possibly with worker housing, costing $5 billion to $60 billion, with one to two years of planning before construction. County Judge Greg Henington said 'we're not taking this, like a lay down' and raised water and noise; about 10 residents spoke against it over air quality, noise, dark skies, housing and the region's identity. · source
Find the paper trail
Find the paper trail (0 filed · 12 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.
- Commissioners Court agendas & packetsThe meeting packet carries the staff report, site plan and conditions — verified page for this locality.
- Search Brewster 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 Brewster 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. This project's locality centres on 30.420, -103.330 — 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.
Recent news
10 stories tracked since 2019-07-16 across 8 outlets. 10× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. Most recent: “Developer behind Amazon's Pecos County data center approaches Brewster County officials” (Texas Public Radio | TPR, 2026-09-18).
- Developer behind Amazon's Pecos County data center approaches Brewster County officials
- Developer behind Amazon’s Pecos County data center approaches Brewster County officials
- Developer behind Amazon's Pecos County data center approaches Brewster County officials
- Data centers loom closer to Brewster County
- Abbott claims DHS isn’t building a wall or fence in Big Bend National Park
- Texas sheriffs, judges, ranchers oppose Big Bend border wall plans
- MCFI builds modular data center for Big Bend Telephone in Texas
- Big Bend Telephone building data center in West Texas
- Border Patrol apprehends known MS-13 gang member near Alpine, Texas
- Big Bend Border Patrol Sector’s new chief sworn in
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 10 headlines archived.
Around here
- Texas briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Texas
- Amazon Fort Stockton campus — Fort Stockton (Pecos County), 42 mi Under construction
- Meta-BlackRock El Paso Data Center — El Paso, 206 mi Proposed
- Crusoe Abilene Expansion — Abilene, 250 mi Under construction
- OpenAI Stargate Shackelford — Shackelford County, 250 mi Under construction
- Stargate Abilene — Abilene (Taylor County), 254 mi Approved
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Pacifico Energy Glass Mountains data center and gas plant (proposed)”, aigridwatch.com/projects/pacifico-glass-mountains-brewster, 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).