25JUL

Maryland county caps campuses at 25 MW

1 min read

11:23UTC

Montgomery County council committees advanced an 18-month freeze and a 25 MW zoning cap on 22 July, the first Maryland jurisdiction to move, with a full council vote on 28 July.

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Key takeaway

Montgomery County is the first Maryland jurisdiction to move, pairing an 18-month pause with a 25 MW cap.

Two council committees in Montgomery County, Maryland voted on 22 July to advance an 18-month freeze on new data centres and a 25 MW zoning cap, a limit barring any single campus from drawing more than 25 megawatts under local land-use rules. It is the first Maryland jurisdiction to act on the beat, and the full council votes on 28 July.⁠¹

The 25 MW threshold outlasts the freeze beside it. A moratorium expires on its own clock; a cap written into the county code stays until it is repealed, and it does not ban campuses outright so much as size them below hyperscale. Montgomery sits in the Washington exurbs, close enough to the Northern Virginia cluster where Prince William supervisors denied the Dulles South campus this month, that its cap sets a marker for neighbouring counties weighing the same load.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Montgomery County, Maryland, is a large county next to Washington DC. On 22 July, two county council committees voted to advance an 18-month pause on new data centres and a permanent rule capping new ones at 25 megawatts, a measure of power use roughly equivalent to a large factory. The full council votes on 28 July. It builds on a shorter, six-month pause County Executive Marc Elrich had already ordered in June. If passed, Montgomery becomes the first place in Maryland to set binding local limits on data centres, rather than leaving the decision to the state.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Montgomery County's 25 MW zoning cap targets a specific structural threshold, the size at which a data centre's power draw begins to require dedicated substation capacity, rather than banning data centres outright; the cap lets small facilities proceed while blocking hyperscale-sized campuses.

Maryland has had no state-level data-centre siting standard, so Montgomery County's committee vote is the first time any Maryland jurisdiction has set binding local limits, a gap other Maryland counties will now have a template to fill.

What could happen next?

Consequence
If the full council ratifies the moratorium on 28 July, Montgomery becomes the first Maryland jurisdiction with a binding data-centre cap, a template other Maryland counties could adopt without waiting for state legislation.

Sources:Food & Water Watch

Mentions:Montgomery County, Maryland →Maryland →Virginia →Midwest →Mexico →Washington →Northern Virginia →New Mexico →

First Reported In

Update #11 · Pipeline vetoed, campus keeps building

Food & Water Watch· 25 Jul 2026

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Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.