Data-center pauses just reached the big cities

San Francisco, Oakland and Raleigh voted pauses on Tuesday. Brighton, Colorado made it a year, and Memphis delayed its vote as the room erupted. In the same 48 hours Google signed 3,590 MW with Constellation in answer to PJM’s bring-your-own-power rule.

By Drew Wall, October 7, 2026

Since Monday, five local governments passed data-center pauses and a sixth put its vote off. San Francisco, Oakland, Raleigh and Brighton, Colorado acted Tuesday; Alachua, Florida acted Monday. Memphis, home to two of the largest AI campuses, lost control of the room. In the same two days, Google signed a 3,590 MW power deal.

Five pauses

San Francisco unanimously passed a 45-day moratorium on approving new or expanded data centers, the first in the Bay Area. It can stretch to 22 months. Oakland voted 7–0 for its own 45-day pause the same night. Raleigh voted 7–1 for six months, with a final vote planned April 6, 2027. Brighton chose one year, after the developer of a 2.5-million-square-foot project withdrew its application mid-meeting. Alachua passed 12 months with no application pending.

These are studies, not bans. Alachua's planning director said more than 20 counties have passed temporary pauses and only three have banned data centers outright.

Memphis went the other way

xAI runs Colossus and Colossus 2 there. On Tuesday the council voted 7–5 to hold a 12-month moratorium until October 20. A crowd of more than 200 took over the chamber and police cleared it. Elsewhere this week a vote produced a pause. In Memphis, the delay was the news.

Google bought the grid

On Tuesday Google and Constellation announced two contracts in the PJM grid. One is a 20-year deal for 890 MW from upgrades to 11 reactors, with the first arriving in 2028. The other is a 15-year, 2,700 MW supply deal. No new reactor is built.

Both companies called it a response to PJM's "bring your own power" proposal. New large loads that do not bring new capacity can be told to cut load during a shortage, starting June 1, 2027. PJM says that capacity must be genuinely new. The 2,700 MW comes from plants that already run, and neither company has said how much PJM would count.

Others moved too. Black Hills signed to serve Google's planned Cheyenne campus with up to 590 MW. TeraWulf doubled a Kentucky campus to 1 GW. Louisiana regulators opened hearings on Entergy's $12.9 billion gas buildout for Meta's Hyperion, with a decision due December 16.

The point

Power contracts are signed in boardrooms, and the biggest buyers are moving faster than any city can write rules. Permits are a different kind of yes. The pauses have moved from exurban counties to cities like San Francisco, where many AI labs are based. Earlier chapters: Data centers bought the watts, data centers keep getting cancelled. Categories: Energy, Environmental.