The Power Connection Digest Issue #51

April 16, 2026

Peter Cook, Editor

It was great seeing so many contacts on my trip to Midland this week! Looking forward to returning to Midland on June 8 & 9 for the Permian Power Connection Conference.

We’re making some great progress on the agenda for the conference, so keep an eye on some updates on the event website over the next week.

The Power Connection is helping to coordinate a power-focused breakout session at the AI Infra Summit in San Francisco in a couple of weeks. I believe our sponsorship includes some passes, so please reply to this email to let me know if you might be interested in joining us there!

This week we kept the articles in the Digest to under ten! It took some discipline, but these are all interesting articles so be sure to check them out. And please let me know if you prefer a more concise Digest like this or if you’d rather have 20+ articles to scroll through. We’re here to serve!

And now, the news…

West Texas Is Not Winning Because It Is Empty

The projects moving forward in West Texas are not there because the land is cheap or because the region is empty. They are there because developers believe they can solve the most important constraint in the market, which is power, faster and more flexibly than almost anywhere else in the country.

Aligned Data Centers Breaks Ground on "Project Caprock,” a Sustainable 540 MW Next-Generation Data Center Campus in Northwest Texas

Aligned Data Centers announced an expansion of its North American data center footprint with "Project Caprock,” a new 540 MW, 313-acre data center campus, located in Hale County just outside of Abernathy, Texas.

Xcel Energy’s new facilities to support electric reliability in Texas, New Mexico

Xcel Energy says new solar generation and battery energy storage facilities are in service to help manage energy costs and reliability for New Mexico and Texas customers.

Jensen Huang Just Told Every Utility CEO They’re Overbuilding the Grid for the Wrong Customer

The five nines trap is locking up 100 GW of available capacity. NVIDIA’s fix starts at the chip, not the substation.

Texas lawmakers held a hearing on data centers. Here are 4 key takeaways

The boom in data centers, many to support artificial intelligence, could strain the Texas power grid and increase energy costs.

The Data Center Market Just Split in Two

The projects that are actually moving forward are not simply those that have assembled large parcels, but those that have secured a credible path to power and can deliver it on a defined timeline.

Kaes Van’t Hof to Speak at the Permian Power Connection Conference

The biggest E&Ps in the world are reshaping the future of Permian power and investing time and resources in this great conference - are you?

Meta Takes a New Approach for Ohio Data Center Expansion

Meta and project financiers are willing to take on construction risk and fuel price exposure to control their own destiny.

SoftBank Announced a 10 GW Data Center Campus in Ohio

$33.3B in gas generation. $4.2B in transmission. The largest single-site AI infrastructure project in history. But the AI race won’t be won by the biggest announcements. It’ll be won by whoever delivers power first.

Looking to stay connected in the rapidly evolving Permian Basin? Look no further than The Power Connection Digest.

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