Project Delta In review
Hyperscale data center on 1,800 acres near Dan River; 998 acres developable, rest is floodplain. Originally approved by commissioners Jan 2026 but rescinded in April after a lawsuit (SCSJ/SELC) challenged the public hearing notice. ELS reapplied in late July 2026. Planning board voted 5-2 to recommend denial on Aug 14, 2026. Commissioners make the final decision. Closed-loop cooling and possible on-site generation planned.
Key facts
- Operator
- Engineered Land Solutions (ELS)
- Size
- 1,800 ac
- Location
- Walnut Cove (Stokes County), North Carolina
- First proposed
- 2025-11-01
- Application filed
- 2026-07-20
- Stage today
- In review
Source
read 2026-08-14
What to do next
Next step: Application filed. Ask the planning office for the hearing date and request formal notice.
What has happened so far (12 events)
- 2025-11-01announcement
Project Delta hyperscale data center proposed near Walnut Cove. · source - 2025-12-01vote
The Stokes County planning board recommended denial of the Project Delta rezoning for the first time, in December 2025, before commissioners later approved it anyway. · source - 2026-01-12vote
Stokes County commissioners approve rezoning despite planning board denial and public opposition. · source - 2026-03-12filing
Community groups and residents file lawsuit challenging the rezoning (SCSJ/SELC). · source - 2026-04-01vote
Commissioners vote to rescind January rezoning approval after lawsuit revealed notice violations. · source - 2026-06-04hearing
Engineered Land Solutions held a community information session on Project Delta on June 4, 2026, according to the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. · source - 2026-07-08hearing
Engineered Land Solutions held a second community information session on Project Delta on July 8, 2026, per the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. · source - 2026-07-09vote
The Stokes County planning board voted 6-1 to recommend a six-month moratorium on data center development to give the county time to study impacts. · source - 2026-07-13vote
Stokes County commissioners voted 3-2 to reject the planning board's recommended six-month data center moratorium and approved text amendments regulating data centers in the county. · source - 2026-07-20filing
ELS submits new conditional use application for Project Delta. · source - 2026-08-14vote
Planning board votes 5-2 to recommend denial of Project Delta conditional use application. · source - 2026-09-08hearing
Stokes County commissioners are scheduled to hold a public hearing on September 8, 2026 to make the final decision on the Project Delta rezoning. · 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.
- North Carolina DEQ — Division of Air QualityThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- Search North Carolina DEQ — Division of Air Quality 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 Walnut Cove (Stokes 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 Walnut Cove (Stokes 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.
- PJM Interconnection (Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley) — 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.
- North Carolina Utilities Commission — 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 36.300, -80.140 — 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
- Stokes County community briefing — Rejectedterm not documented
- North Carolina briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in North Carolina
- Project Iron Spur — Rural Hall (Forsyth County), 9 mi Awaiting decision
- Southeast Raleigh Data Center — Raleigh, 91 mi Withdrawn
- Terra Nexus data center campus (316 Old Cheraw Highway) — Rockingham (Richmond County), 96 mi In review
- CoreWeave Marble NC — Marble (Cherokee County), 228 mi In review
- Drox Group Rural Hall — Rural Hall (Forsyth County) Denied
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Project Delta”, aigridwatch.com/projects/stokes-county-project-delta, 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).