PowerHouse has secured approval for a new behind-the-meter data center project outside Austin, Texas.

Together with Big Watt Digital, PowerHouse last week announced it has secured approval for the Taylor Technology Campus in Taylor, a city in Williamson County, Texas.

Taylor City Council unanimously approved the proposals last week, which were previously known as Project Mustang.

Located between FM 112 and US 79, some 35 miles (56km) northeast of Austin, the 664-acre campus is designed to deliver up to 1GW of data center capacity using dedicated, behind-the-meter power via a new 750MW natural gas plant.

The first power is targeted for the first half of 2028, with the first phase aiming to offer 500MW.

The site will reportedly use a closed-loop cooling system to reduce water use.

“The introduction of the Taylor site demonstrates Big Watt and PowerHouse’s immediate progress along with what the company was built to do: bring power and digital infrastructure together from the outset to deliver speed, scale and certainty for the AI economy,” said Alex Hern, co-CEO and co-founder of Big Watt Digital. “By pairing digital infrastructure with dedicated, behind-the-meter power, we are designing for and addressing one of the biggest constraints facing data center development today - access to reliable power - without relying solely on incremental grid capacity.”

Founded in 2022, PowerHouse has data center projects in operation and development across Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

A division of American Real Estate Partners (AREP), PowerHouse says its portfolio and pipeline totals more than 8GW of capacity. Investment giant Brookfield recently took a minority stake in AREP.

PowerHouse has a sizable existing presence in Texas. In March, it topped out a 201MW data center in Irving, Dallas, and it is currently developing a 768-acre campus with Provident Data Centers just south of Dallas in Ellis County. The firm also looks set to develop on Tract-owned land outside Austin, and recently filed for a project outside Fort Worth in Westlake.

Founded in 2021, Texas-based Big Watt Digital is a power and digital infrastructure platform specializing in dedicated, behind-the-meter power generation. Its website says the company has four projects totaling 5GW across three states.