Ahead of the January legislative session, some politicians have raised the idea of putting limits on data center development, in line with new regulations approved in Fairfax County, Virginia earlier this month that blocks data centers from being built close to residential neighborhoods or within a mile of a commuter rail station.

“Can we just say, ‘No, you can’t come?’" state Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, said of data centers at a hearing in June. “Too many pigs at the table who just run out of food. If they don’t come with their own trough full of food, can we just say no?”

Texas regulators may also face the question of who will pay for all the grid upgrades necessary to serve the data centers, which have typically been spread evenly across new and existing customers. In Ohio, the utility giant AEP, which also operates in Texas, is requesting the state utility commission shift the cost of building out the grid to new customers like data centers, in what is widely viewed as a test case for other utilities.