Amazon is building its own gas power plant in Pecos County, Texas, to supply power to a new AI data center. The environmental permit allows for emissions of up to 33 million tons of carbon dioxide per year – more than double that of the currently largest single power plant in the USA. The facility is initially not intended to be connected to the public power grid.
Pacifico Energy is constructing 35 turbines at the GW Ranch
On a site referred to as GW Ranch in Pecos County, 35 gas turbines with a combined capacity of 7.65 gigawatts are being built. The developer and operator is the energy developer Pacifico Energy; the Texas environmental agency TCEQ approved the facility on January 26, 2026, and Amazon is purchasing the electricity through a long-term supply contract without owning the facility itself. The industry service Distilled Earth revealed in early August that the online retailer is behind the project; construction began in July 2026, with the first electricity deliveries scheduled for the first quarter of 2027.
Additionally, Pacifico Energy announced up to 750 megawatts of solar power and 1.8 gigawatts of battery storage – an addition, not a replacement for the gas turbines. The facility uses non-potable brackish water that is unsuitable for drinking or irrigation. The power plant is initially not intended to be connected to the Texas grid, as reported by The Next Web. This allows Amazon to bypass the long wait times for grid connections that many planned AI data centers in the USA are currently facing – connection requests to US grid operators are piling up for years in many places because lines and substations are lacking for the sudden power demand of the industry.
Environmental organizations warn of health consequences
Kathryn Guerra, campaign director at the consumer protection organization Public Citizen, told GV Wire, the facility will have “enormous impacts on the environment and public health.” Gas-fired power plants emit smog-forming pollutants that are linked to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. By comparison: The currently largest single power plant in the USA, the James H. Miller Jr. coal plant in Alabama, emits about 16 million tons of carbon dioxide per year – the permit for the Texas facility allows for well over double that.
The TCEQ examines air quality requirements for individual facilities in such permits, but not their contribution to nationwide emissions. Environmental groups criticize this: Because Texas approves several off-grid power plants in parallel, the burden in the region accumulates without any agency assessing the overall impact.
Beyond Amazon, the race for data center power is increasing: Just this week, Nvidia invested three billion dollars in the power supplier Lancium to secure capacity for the data center project Stargate.
Amazon points to climate goals and growing power demand
Amazon stated according to The Next Web that the company intends to cover the full costs of its power supply itself and wants to connect the facility to the public grid as soon as the capacities are available. The corporation also refers to its climate promise to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, as well as to ten gigawatts of committed emission-free energy in around 40 Texas projects.
The demand is driving Amazon’s investments overall: Just recently, the corporation raised its spending forecast for data centers and AI infrastructure in 2026 to 220 billion dollars because the cloud division AWS is growing faster than it has in years. About 50 kilometers from the GW Ranch, Microsoft and the oil company Chevron are building a similar facility of around two gigawatts – also without a direct grid connection.
It will be crucial whether Pacifico Energy quickly retrofits the promised solar and storage capacity or whether the gas power plant bears the main load for years. Cleanview founder Michael Thomas described the project to GV Wire as a possible harbinger for more power plants of this kind outside the public grid – it remains to be seen whether Texas authorities will scrutinize the off-grid model more strictly in the future as more tech companies follow suit.
