An approval is permission to build; it is not a measurement of supply.
Researched by an agentic pipeline. Reviewed and approved by the editor before publication.
An approval is permission to build; it is not a measurement of supply. Across Ohio and Nevada, regulators have approved, or are weighing, large gas plants built to serve single data-centre campuses138. None of the sources opened for this brief reports energised, operating or metered output for any of them, and the federal rules that decide how such on-site generation is netted against grid load are still being rewritten57. A planner should treat approved megawatts as an upper bound on an unmeasured pipeline, not as capacity.
The Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB), the state regulator, has approved a run of behind-the-meter gas plants in New Albany. Five are named in the sources opened. The capacities are approved or stated plant ratings, not measured output.
| Plant | Rating | Status in opened sources |
|---|---|---|
| Socrates South | 200 MW | Approved 9 June 2025; under construction by June 202623 |
| Socrates North | 200 MW | Under construction by June 2026; approval date not stated3 |
| Socrates the Younger | 250 MW gas plus 116 MW battery | Approved, case 26-0169-EL-BLN, reported 26 June 20261 |
| PowerConneX I (EdgeConneX) | 120 MW | Under construction by June 2026; approval date not stated3 |
| PowerConneX II (EdgeConneX) | 216 MW | Under construction by June 2026; approval date not stated3 |
The five gas plants sum to 986 MW; the battery is excluded because it is storage, not generation. The three Socrates plants are developed by Will-Power OH, LLC and serve Sidecat, LLC, an affiliate of Meta Platforms, Inc.12. The OPSB says the latest, Socrates the Younger, will operate behind the meter and will not be physically connected to the grid; it carries 36 conditions1. A separate 73 MW fuel cell in Franklin County was approved in October 20254.
The only cost figure is trade-press reporting that two 200 MW stations were expected to cost about $1.6 billion2. That is a pre-construction expectation, not an outturn, and the source does not say what it includes, so no cost per megawatt can be drawn from it.
Policy Matters Ohio states that since June 2025 the OPSB "approved over 2,000 MW of natural gas-powered behind-the-meter generation", and that data-centre projects include plans for at least 3,280 MW more4. Policy Matters is an advocacy organisation arguing that lawmakers should not create or support incentives for on-site generation, so a larger approved figure serves its case. That does not make it wrong, but it makes it a claim to confirm. The page cites a Public Utilities Commission of Ohio presentation of March 2026 and an OPSB project list updated 28 May 2026, and does not show how the total was built4.
The named projects above come to 986 MW of gas plus the 73 MW fuel cell: 1,059 MW, roughly half the headline. Those figures share one basis, as-approved ratings, but the approval dates for three of them are unverified, so some of them may predate June 2025. The remaining 940 MW or so cannot be itemised from the sources opened. The 3,280 MW is described as planned; it is a projection and must not be added to the approved figure.
No opened source reports commissioning or metered generation for any of these plants. In June 2025, POWER expected Socrates South to complete in the third quarter of 2026 and the first EdgeConneX plant to operate as soon as early 20262. By 30 June 2026, Farm and Dairy still listed both Socrates plants and PowerConneX I as under construction3. The EdgeConneX forecast has therefore slipped against its 2025 date. The gap between approved and operating is unmeasured, not shown to be large.
In Nevada, Nexus Fulcrum LLC applied on 17 June 2026 to the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada for a 510 MW gas plant of nine turbines of 56 to 57 MW each, at the former Sierra Biofuels refinery9. Switch disclosed in September that it is the ultimate owner8. The application is pending, as is a state air-quality permit. The application projects construction from early 2027 to late 2029 and emissions of up to 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year89.
Two temporary gas plants were approved in September 2026; the opened sources do not state their capacity8. A proposed pipeline expansion of about 230 miles "could supply an estimated 5,000 megawatts" of gas-fired generation, which is supply capacity, not plant, and the operator expects service in November 2028 only after federal approval it does not yet have8. Fleet Data Centers' request for more than 350 MW of on-site power has no reported status9. None of this adds to the approved total.
On 18 June 2026 FERC, the US federal energy regulator, issued its order on PJM's co-located load framework in docket EL25-49-002567. PJM had proposed a 50 MW threshold measured on generator nameplate. FERC required it to be load-based: up to 50 MW of load can be netted at a single electrical location567. FERC also again kept the term "Point of Interconnection" and rejected PJM's "Point of Change in Ownership"5.
PJM proposed 1 June 2029 as the effective date for the new transmission services. FERC found the timing insufficiently supported and asked PJM to consider earlier implementation57. That date belongs to those services, not to the threshold. Compliance was due within 60 days of the order, about 17 August 2026 by simple count. On 30 July PJM said it had moved to extend time and was targeting early to mid-November 2026 for its filings if the motions were accepted7. Whether FERC granted that, or whether any filing has been made, is not in the sources opened.
Socrates the Younger is described as grid-disconnected, so these PJM rules most plausibly bear on grid-connected arrangements; that is an inference, not something the sources state.
Established: regulators in Ohio have approved at least 986 MW of named on-site gas for data centres, with a 73 MW fuel cell besides, and FERC has set a load-based 50 MW netting basis. Not established: any operating or metered megawatt, the itemisation of the 2,000 MW headline, or an effective date for the new PJM services. No independent measurement of output exists in the sources opened.
Use a three-part test on any claim that behind-the-meter gas will supply a data centre. First, is the figure approved, under construction or energised, and who says so? Second, is the number a plant rating, a metered output or a pipeline's supply capacity? Third, which netting and transmission rules will apply, and have they taken effect? Until a source answers the first question with metered output, plan on approved megawatts as permission, not power.
Do not scale the national 52 GW, or Cleanview's 2 GW of gas, into a figure for data-centre storage.
Oversubscription shows demand for allocations; it does not show how much of the allocated time ran jobs.
Treat memory as a priced, volatile input with a public supplier side and a private buyer side, and plan on the private side.