Overview
- Amazon confirmed Friday that it is financially backing the GW Ranch project in Pecos County, Texas, has purchased the site, filed data-center construction permits, and begun land clearing.
- Permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality authorize a 35-turbine, roughly 7.65 gigawatt plant and set an upper limit of about 33 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions per year.
- Amazon says the plant will run behind-the-meter at first and that the campus is designed to transition to grid-connected service as interconnection timelines allow, and the company says it is exploring on-site solar and battery storage.
- Environmental and health experts and local officials have raised alarms because gas-fired behind-the-meter plants emit carbon dioxide, can leak methane upstream, and release pollutants linked to respiratory and cardiovascular harm.
- The GW Ranch move reflects a wider trend of hyperscale tech firms building private power to bypass long grid-connection delays, a shift that reshapes regional energy markets and complicates corporate net-zero pledges.