Source: Data Center Knowledge / EEI / Canary Media · July 2026
Key Highlights
Virginia's first-in-nation data-center power tax — $0.011 per kWh — took effect July 1.
Developers are moving beyond saturated Northern Virginia to Ohio, Louisiana, Wisconsin, and Missouri.
Missouri is emerging as a hub: Amazon has planned ~$10B and Google ~$15B in-state.
Substation transformer lead times now exceed 160 weeks.
Power limitations are extending some construction timelines by 24 to 72 months.
The Signal
The moratorium wave doesn't stop the build-out — it relocates it.
Grid headroom, not fiber or land, is the new site-selection variable.
The winners are second-tier metros with spare interconnection capacity.
Capital does not disappear when a market closes; it migrates. Virginia — long the world's densest data-center market — just put a per-kilowatt-hour price on the thing data centers consume most, and the pipeline is already shifting toward states that will still trade power for jobs.
The constraint underneath the map is physical. Transformer lead times past 160 weeks and interconnection queues that add years mean a site's real value is how fast it can energize, not how cheaply it can be bought. That is a different underwriting question than the one the industry asked in 2023.
The structural read is a redraw of the data-center geography. Ohio, Louisiana, Wisconsin, and especially Missouri are absorbing tens of billions in hyperscaler commitments precisely because their grids have room. Site selection has become a power-availability arbitrage.
Implications
Landowners and developers in grid-rich secondary markets have a scarce, appreciating asset; those in saturated or moratorium metros hold optionality that just got repriced. For lenders, the diligence item is interconnection timing and utility posture, not just tenant credit. For economic-development authorities, the tradeoff between tax revenue and ratepayer backlash is now the whole negotiation.
Key Takeaway
In the AI build-out, the best site isn't the cheapest — it's the one that can get power first.
