Texas data center site selection, power first

Who this is for

• Data center developers and site selectors screening Texas
• Power and energy teams pairing a campus with on-site gas or nearby generation
• Brokers and land teams who want a power story for a tract

Data center site selection has turned upside down. Fiber and tax incentives used to lead. Now the first question is how much power a site can get, and how soon. In Texas that question has more than one answer, because parts of the state are not on the ERCOT grid at all.

Voltane's data center view works at the screening area level, not the parcel. It shows where land sits close to high-voltage transmission and substations, where gas pipelines run for on-site generation, which utility serves the area, and which grid that utility is on. It also shows known data centers so you can see where others have built.

What Voltane checks

Every layer below is public data. The map and every brief show the source and date next to each value. Where a value is missing it reads "unknown", never zero.

How it works

1. Open the data center type on the map. Texas is shown as screening areas rather than single parcels.
2. Each area shows its distance to transmission by voltage class and to the nearest substation.
3. Gas pipelines are drawn from EIA and Railroad Commission of Texas layers, for teams planning on-site generation.
4. Utility service areas tell you who serves the area, and whether it sits in ERCOT, SPP, MISO or WECC.
5. Known data centers come from OpenStreetMap, Epoch AI and a curated list. They are community mapped and not complete.

What Voltane does not tell you

Voltane is a screening tool. Every result is screening only, not a site suitability determination. Before you commit money to a site you still need:

• Large-load interconnection queue data. Voltane does not show ERCOT's large-load queue or any utility's load requests yet.
• How many megawatts a substation or line can deliver to a new load. Voltane does not know, and nothing on the map should be read that way.
• Water supply or rights for cooling.
• Fiber routes, latency or carrier presence.
• Parcel-level ownership, zoning, or tax abatement status.

See the output

The sample Opportunity Brief is the first page of a real Texas solar brief: the shortlist, the open questions and the source and date on every fact.

Questions buyers ask

Can Voltane tell me how much power a Texas site can get?

No. Voltane shows how close land is to transmission and substations and who serves it. How much load a site can take is answered by the utility and ERCOT through a load interconnection request and studies.

Does Voltane show the ERCOT large-load queue?

Not yet. The queue data on the map is ERCOT's generation interconnection queue. It is shown as context for grid activity in a county, not as a load figure.

Why does the grid an area sits on matter?

Most of Texas is on ERCOT, but parts of the Panhandle, East Texas and El Paso are served by utilities in SPP, MISO or WECC. The rules, timelines and markets differ. Our research piece on it lists the counties.

Is the data center layer complete?

No. It is built from OpenStreetMap, Epoch AI and a curated list checked on 2026-09-29. Treat it as a guide to where others have built, not a census.

Can I plan on-site gas generation with Voltane?

You can see where gas pipelines run near an area. Pipeline capacity, pressure and a supply contract are questions for the pipeline operator.

Does Voltane rank parcels for data centers?

Not today. The data center view ranks screening areas. Parcel-level screening is live for solar, storage and hybrid.

Further reading

• Texas has more than one grid
• Where Texas can still connect

Other ways to use Voltane

• Texas solar site selection
• Texas battery storage site screening
• ERCOT grid and land data, read the right way
• Texas county siting data
• US nuclear candidate sites