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 A moratorium expires on its own clock; a cap written into the county code stays until it is repealed, and it does not ban campuses outright so much as size them below hyperscale.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

Read original →

Different Perspectives

Indian data-centre investors

Amazon, CPPIB and Google committed billions to Indian data-centre capacity within a single week in June, a market absorbing hyperscale investment while New Mexico and Maryland tighten permitting this fortnight. Every US moratorium makes that alternative more attractive, not less.

Gulf sovereign capital and hyperscale infrastructure investors

GE Vernova's turbine backlog grew to 116 GW and Synergy counted a 45 GW US pipeline the same week New Mexico killed a pipeline outright. Capital keeps moving toward campuses that can secure power fastest, in the Gulf as much as Texas or Virginia.

New Mexico and Virginia regulators, and the counties opposing the build-out

Garcia Richard killed Energy Transfer's Green Chili lateral for a second time on 15 July, and Sierra, Santa Fe and Socorro counties layered moratoria on top; Virginia's DEQ, lacking a PFAS rule, issued Amazon's Lake Anna permit regardless. Consent belongs in statute, and New Mexico's 2027 bill is the next test of whether that principle spreads.

Global hyperscale operators

Operators are still filing gigawatt-scale campuses and Meta is proceeding with its $10bn Lebanon, Indiana site despite the county-level bans nearby, betting Q2 capex outruns the patchwork of restrictions. Industry framing casts New York's freeze, Oregon's surcharge and Indiana's bans as taxes and levies that push build-out toward faster-permitting jurisdictions such as India and the Gulf.

EirGrid

EirGrid set a 900 MW instantaneous demand-loss ceiling because a single voltage dip can trip many data centres onto backup power at once, risking imbalance above 1,150 MW. It wrote the limit into a standing procedure rather than waiting for an emergency to force one.

US host communities and ratepayers

Prince William residents backed the 8-0 denial of Dulles South over the Occoquan watershed, drinking water for eight million people, while Oregon's approved tariff cuts residential bills 1.3% by charging large loads 29% more. Their position: consent and cost-attribution belong in law, not left to a developer's or a utility's discretion.