⭐ Morning Briefing — October 15, 2026

(Thursday, October 15, 2026)

Top Story: Denton now requires a council-approved specific-use permit for every data center. The council voted 4-0 Tuesday to limit them to industrial and public-facility zoning, and city staff had already turned away a new application last week.

📰 Today's News

1. 🏛️ Denton Votes 4-0 to Make Every New Data Center Get a Council Permit

On Tuesday, the Denton City Council voted 4-0 to amend the development code. Data centers are now limited to land zoned light industrial, heavy industrial or public facilities, and each one needs a specific-use permit, the Denton Record-Chronicle reported. Mayor Chris Watts and council member Jill Jester were absent.
The amendments require a 300-foot setback, limits on light spilling onto neighboring homes, water and wastewater impact studies, and closed-loop or free-air cooling. A project can't be placed on an agenda until it has every required approval from the PUC and ERCOT.
Mayor Pro Tem Nick Stevens said city staff rejected a data center application last week because it didn't meet intake requirements. City Attorney Mack Reinwand said the new standards could potentially apply to that developer, but that deciding so would take "a lot of review."
Council member George Ferrie said the permit requirement "protects us more while we're going through the moratorium phase." The council's next public hearing on a 90-day moratorium is Oct. 27.
Elsewhere in North Texas, WFAA reported Wednesday that Red Oak officials approved rezoning land for a data center complex. Residents had flagged a new data center item on the city's Oct. 13 agenda. We couldn't find a written report with the acreage, the developer or the vote count.

Today's Signal: A specific-use permit means every Denton data center gets its own council vote. That's the case-by-case approach San Antonio is debating this week, and it's already law in Denton. It also makes a moratorium less necessary, since nothing can be built without a vote anyway. The Oct. 27 hearing will show whether the council still wants the moratorium on top of the permit requirement.

2. 🗳️ Abbott Says His Data Center Rules Should Wait for the 2027 Session

In a joint interview Wednesday with The Dallas Morning News and NBC 5 at Love Field, Gov. Greg Abbott said the Legislature should "turn my guidelines into law" next year. He rejected Democratic nominee Gina Hinojosa's call for faster action.
Abbott listed the rules he wants: data centers pay for their own electrical infrastructure, use water-efficient cooling, report power and water use, and limit noise. He also wants sales tax breaks and other "unnecessary incentives" eliminated, and said cities, counties and residents should get more say over where data centers go and how they operate.
He said Texas can regulate data centers without hurting the U.S. in its AI race with China, even though President Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz have warned against overregulating AI. Early voting starts Monday, Oct. 19, ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

Today's Signal: The current pause rests on executive orders. Abbott's plan to strengthen local control has to pass in a session that opens in January, and cities like Denton and San Antonio are writing their own rules before then.

3. 🏭 Bastrop's Contested Gas Plant Is Reportedly for Anthropic, and Construction Could Start in November

Public filings show the primary tenant of the data center campus powered by Pacifico Energy's proposed Cedar Creek gas plant is reportedly Anthropic, the company that makes Claude, the Austin American-Statesman reported Wednesday. BlackChamber is developing the campus, which the Statesman values at more than $2.2 billion.
The Statesman reported that the plant would have 48 turbines and 710 MW of generating capacity. Bastrop County's 44,700-plus homes draw about 224 MW at peak. The site covers more than 2,800 acres off Earl Callahan Road, and the developers say only about 600 acres will be developed.
The first building, Project Longhorn, was filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation this month: nearly 500,000 square feet at an estimated $366 million. The filing has construction starting in late November and finishing in January 2028. Community Impact also listed the Earl Callahan Road data center among this week's Austin-area permits.
Aqua Water Supply Corp. approved service in August, capped at 6,900 gallons of potable water a day. The developers say they'll use about 2,000.
TCEQ doesn't have to grant the public meeting Bastrop County commissioners requested Tuesday. That call belongs to interim executive director Steven Schar, who took over this month, and depends on whether he finds "substantial" public interest.

Today's Signal: The construction date in the state filing comes before any public meeting on the air permit, and TCEQ has paused data center permits while ERCOT's audit runs. The plant has no air permit yet, so a building finished on schedule could sit without power.

4. 💵 Cipher Raises $850 Million in Zero-Interest Notes for Its Colorado City Campus, and the Stock Falls

Cipher Digital priced $850 million in zero-coupon convertible notes due 2032, with an option for up to $150 million more. The company said the money will fund more equity in its Barber Lake campus in Colorado City, Texas, along with its broader HPC pipeline, TheEnergyMag and Benzinga reported.
Shares fell for a second straight session. 24/7 Wall St. reported Cipher down about 5% Wednesday after a 14% drop Tuesday. Applied Digital fell about 6% and IREN about 4%.
TheEnergyMag reported that the raise follows a September restructuring of Barber Lake. The leases with Fluidstack and an unnamed AI lab now run 20 years instead of 10, and contracted revenue rose to more than $9 billion from $3.8 billion. In exchange, Cipher covers the first $359.3 million of cost overruns. Data halls are scheduled for delivery from Q4 2026 through Q1 2027.
Noteholders can demand cash repayment on Nov. 1, 2030, two years before the notes mature.

Today's Signal: Barber Lake now has 20-year leases, but Cipher covers the first $359.3 million of any cost overrun. Investors judged the extra revenue wasn't worth the new risk and dilution. Overruns on the first data halls, due by early 2027, would be paid partly with this raise.

5. 🏙️ San Antonio's Council Weighs Fixed Rules Against Case-by-Case Votes

City staff gave the San Antonio City Council two options Wednesday, KSAT reported. The first is a set of fixed standards: industrial and heavy-commercial zoning only, a 500-foot buffer from schools and homes, a 50-foot property-line setback, and nothing over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. The second would require council approval for each project, without those standards written into the code.
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones proposed a hybrid. It would require council approval plus a 45-day pre-filing notice, enclosed backup generators, and replacement of twice the green space a project removes. A "1,000-foot setback" in her proposal was left unexplained Wednesday.
Councilman Ric Galvan, whose district has most of the city's data centers, backed case-by-case votes. Councilwoman Misty Spears warned that heavy restrictions would push projects to Medina County. The zoning commission takes it up next week, and the council votes Oct. 29.

Today's Signal: Spears pointed out that a project pushed to Medina County would still affect San Antonio's air. Every city setting its own rules runs into that problem, and it's one reason Abbott's call for more local control matters.

6. 🔋 Ambrosia Starts Building a 10 GWh Battery Factory Near Austin for Off-Grid Data Centers

Ambrosia Energy CEO Ben Longmier said Tuesday at TechCrunch Disrupt that work has begun on a 150,000-square-foot battery factory near Austin. The company expects full production in two to three years, enough to build about 300 MW of power plants a year.
Its first commercial plant, in West Texas, starts later this year. It pairs 300 MW of solar with 660 MWh of batteries to deliver 30 MW around the clock, targeting 99.3% uptime and a cost of $100 per MWh. Longmier said that price competes with the gas turbines many hyperscalers are planning to use.

Today's Signal: It takes about 300 MW of solar to deliver 30 MW of firm power, a 10-to-1 ratio. Off-grid solar is a real option for data centers in West Texas, where land is plentiful. It doesn't work where land is scarce, like the North Texas sites now in zoning fights.

7. ⚙️ Taylor's Gas Plant Will Be 750 MW, With 500 MW in Phase One

Data Center Dynamics reported Thursday that a new 750 MW natural gas plant will power PowerHouse and Big Watt Digital's Taylor Technology Campus, and that the first phase is planned at 500 MW. First power is targeted for the first half of 2028.
DCD also listed PowerHouse's other Texas projects: a 201 MW building in Irving that topped out in March, a 768-acre Ellis County campus with Provident Data Centers, and a recent filing in Westlake.

Today's Signal: Taylor's 750 MW plant would be larger than the 710 MW Pacifico plant that Bastrop County is asking TCEQ to hold a public meeting on, but Taylor's annexation passed with the council's unanimous support.

There were no new ERCOT news releases or PUC large-load docket actions, and we found no new TCEQ air-permit notices in the eight DFW-area counties we track. We also found no lawsuit from Sailfish against Hood County yet, and no public account of the Water Development Board's enforcement report.

📍 Today's Watch List

Denton's Oct. 27 moratorium hearing, and whether the developer whose application was rejected last week reapplies under the new permit rules.
The details of Red Oak's newest data center rezoning: acreage, developer and vote count.
Early voting starts Oct. 19, and Abbott and Hinojosa are likely to keep arguing over who decides when data center construction resumes.
TCEQ's Oct. 19 compliance update, and whether interim director Steven Schar grants Bastrop County's request for a public meeting on the Pacifico plant.
Whether Project Longhorn's late-November construction start holds while its power plant waits for an air permit.
San Antonio's zoning commission review next week and the council's Oct. 29 vote.
Whether Sailfish Investors sues Hood County.
The Water Development Board's enforcement report to the governor, which was due Oct. 14.
Delivery of Cipher's first Barber Lake data halls, scheduled for Q4 2026.
Austin Water's public survey, which closes Oct. 18.
ERCOT's Dec. 10 audit reports and the PUC's Dec. 17 open meeting. Nothing material is expected there before December.