New Era Energy & Digital commences phase 2 engineering for TCDC

New Era Energy & Digital announced the commencement of Phase Two engineering for Texas Critical Data Centers, its data center and power development project located in West Texas. TCDC is collecting bids for site clearing, with work expected to begin within the next 60 days. TCDC also highlighted significant progress on obtaining air permits. The data center site is located in an air-quality attainment zone, a positive factor differentiating it from other data center projects. TCDC is pursuing a minor source air permit, a process that allows up to 250 tons of emissions per year and can typically be approved within 90 days. TCDC plans to close on the acquisition of the additional 203 acres previously announced within 60-90 days, expanding the site to 438 contiguous acres and further strengthening its land position for long-term scalability. With this land expansion, TCDC’s West Texas data center campus is now being designed to ultimately scale to 1 GW or above, supporting the surging demand for AI and GPU-driven digital infrastructure. Additional near-term milestones include expanding behind-the-meter power capacity and submitting a large-load interconnection application. In 2026, the focus will shift to starting construction of behind-the-meter power, and commencing initial data center construction, with capacity expansion planned to begin in 2027 to meet demand.