Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order on Tuesday, August 18, 2026, that offers faster state permitting to data center projects willing to accept a set of power supply, environmental, and cost responsibility conditions. The state Department of Environmental Protection will write the new review process. The order reaches proposals with peak electricity demand above 25MW, and it requires qualifying projects to draw their electricity from newly built supply, including a rising share of firm clean generation.
Developers who sign a consent order and agreement committing to the infrastructure development standards the state introduced in February will have applications reviewed by the department on a rolling basis. Developers who decline will wait until they hold every local permit and any required water approvals before the state opens a review at all.
Equity analysts at Jefferies wrote on Wednesday that the order narrows the path for independent power producers such as Talen Energy, Vistra, and PSEG Power to sell output from existing plants to Pennsylvania data centers under long term contracts. The analysts indicated that Talen's earlier arrangement to supply an Amazon data center from the Susquehanna nuclear plant, which Talen majority owns, appears unaffected.
The order arrives amid a broader wave of state and local restrictions on data center growth. A National League of Cities database released Wednesday counts at least 81 cities and counties with moratoria on data center development. Pennsylvania's approach differs by conditioning speed on new generation rather than blocking projects outright.
Source: Utility Dive - https://www.utilitydive.com/news/pennsylvania-executive-order-data-centers/828261/