Gov. Greg Abbott announced Aug. 10 that Meta will comply with the standards and guidelines he established for data centers in Texas, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
The announcement, made the same day the governor’s office said OpenAI would meet the requirements, adds the social media giant to the list of companies agreeing to the statewide guardrails Abbott set earlier this summer for data center development.
“I established clear guardrails to ensure data centers protect our electric grid, conserve our water, respect our neighborhoods, and pay their own way,” Abbott said in the release. “They must not pass costs on to Texas families or interfere with their quality of life.”
Under the standards, Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to ensure data centers pay for their electric infrastructure instead of shifting costs onto Texas families and small businesses, reuse their own water, reduce the cost of electricity for Texans, avoid disrupting residential neighborhoods, and pay their own way rather than relying on what the release called outdated taxpayer-funded incentives.
The PUCT and ERCOT will also examine each project’s plans for disclosing taxpayer-funded incentives, providing its own power through on-site generation or reduced reliance on the ERCOT grid, protecting water resources with reuse procedures and water-efficient cooling, limiting impacts on neighbors through noise mitigation, light controls, setbacks, traffic improvements and emergency response coordination, and disclosing project ownership and controlling interests, according to the release. The agencies must receive and audit that information before a project can move forward.
“The PUCT and ERCOT cannot make decisions to guarantee grid stability and reliability based on substantially incomplete information,” Abbott said in the release.
Any data center company that fails to comply with ERCOT’s audit process is subject to having its approval denied, the governor’s office said. Since the directives were issued, the office noted, data centers across the state have either announced full compliance or announced they are ending their data center projects.