Project Aquila

Project Aquila is a planned data-centre campus in Hill County, Texas, developed by RCM Hill LLC, designed to deliver 1,235 MW of capacity across 800-plus acres. Its developer signed four landowner contracts worth more than $80 million over 16 months and secured an ERCOT large-load interconnection position, with a $61.75 million deposit due by 24 July 2026 to hold the grid slot.

On 12 May 2026 The Hill County commissioners court voted 3-2 to impose a moratorium on the project, despite County Judge Shane Brassell calling the measure "illegal" and county attorney David Holmes warning that commissioners lacked the authority. RCM Hill LLC responded on 28 May by filing a $100 million lawsuit alleging regulatory taking under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and the Texas Constitution. The site retains agricultural use, which complicates a total-taking argument, but the combination of signed contracts, an imminent deposit Deadline, and the county attorney's own on-record admission of authority limits represents unusually strong grounds under Penn Central's investment-backed-expectations factor.

Project Aquila sits within ERCOT's already-strained 410 GW large-load queue, in which data centres account for roughly 87 per cent of requests. Its 24 July deposit Deadline is a direct product of ERCOT's queue-reform rules designed to flush speculative applicants: if the moratorium runs past that date, RCM Hill loses the interconnection position it spent over a year securing, regardless of whether it ultimately wins in court.