Just when I thought I got him to fall in love with Chantilly
I shoulda known better than to take him back to Abilene
I put him right back into ERCOT’s arms
PJM wasn’t a match for that kinda spark

Ella Langley had the right idea, even if her somewhat reluctant song of the summer wasn’t originally penned about data center construction in the Lone Star State. But they’re choosin’ Texas, I can tell.

Developers are flocking to deregulated Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) territory, recognizing the electricity grid operator’s edge over other regions in getting projects online quickly. Rather than keep millions of dollars tied up while waiting for queue logjams elsewhere to resolve, deep-pocketed investors favor ERCOT’s Connect and Manage approach to interconnection, which has become a template that other regional transmission organizations (RTOs) are using to build their own frameworks.

She’s from Texas, I can tell by the way
He’s two steppin’ ’round the queue
And judgin’ by the number written on his PPA
There’s nothin’ I can do

Although the “manage” part of ERCOT’s method (curtailment) is a lot less fun than connecting, the proof is in the pudding, and Texas is smashing demand records this summer without spiking power prices or even coming close to having to call for energy conservation. Saturation of solar, wind, and battery energy storage is to thank for that, demonstrating the possibilities for regions with woebegone queues like MISO and PJM.

“MISO is still working on their 2021 batch,” president and CEO of San Antonio-based OCI Energy Sabah Bayatli told Factor This. “What if Ford was still working on their 2021 F-150 model? Just think about it. It’s just not acceptable in any work.”

In June, a Texas Tribune analysis identified at least 582 operational and planned data center projects in the state. Since then, even more have cropped up, like a Meta and BlackRock joint venture to build 1 gigawatt (GW) of compute capacity at a state-of-the-art data center campus currently under construction in El Paso. Over the last two years, ERCOT tallied up 438,595 megawatts (MW) of projected large energy consumer demand. That’s about a third of total American power generation, in case you’re curious. It won’t all come to fruition, but the total is staggering, and the fastest and cheapest supply is lining up to service demand. According to a fresh Mercom Capital Group report, solar companies raised $16.9 billion in corporate funding in the first half of 2026, a 56% year-over-year increase. 135 different venture capital investors participated in solar funding.

Of course, not every state has the glut of available land that Texas does, and therefore may not have the luxury of overbuilding renewables as it has. But while PJM forecasts a growing supply shortfall, ERCOT is open for business, and until the other RTOs get their stuff straight, Data Center Alley is migrating southwest, and fast.

It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see
Devs always find a way to leave
Cogeneratin’ by myself
They’re choosin’ Texas, I can tell

Paul Gerke
Factor This

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Welcome to the Factor This Brief, a weekly collection of energy industry finance and development updates, delivered straight to your inbox on Monday mornings and hosted in a not-so-brief fashion here on Factor This, featuring the people, projects, and technology driving our electric future.

Thanks for checking it out. If you like what you see or want to recommend a story for next week, drop me a line. In the meantime, be the void.

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Mood Shift

Georgia Power is making more out of assets already on its system, completing one of the company’s first battery energy storage systems (BESS) connected to solar.

The 49.5 megawatt (MW) Moody Battery Facility, located just outside of Valdosta, Georgia, was finished ahead of schedule. The two-acre site was designed to match the output of the nearby Moody solar facility and can deploy stored low-cost energy back to the grid over a four-hour period during peaks of electricity demand.

Rick Anderson, senior vice president of Georgia Power, called Moody’s completion great news for the utility’s customers. “This project not only enhances grid resiliency but highlights our commitment to adding cost-effective resources to our diverse generation mix through programs reviewed and approved with the Georgia PSC,” he said.

Crowder Engineering was awarded the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the Moody battery energy storage system (BESS). The firm overcame hurdles including evolving design modifications requested by the owner and adjustments to final equipment specs, but still managed to complete all concrete foundations three weeks ahead of schedule, pushing up the project’s timeline. The Moody BESS project required 770 cubic yards of concrete, 11,000 feet of underground conduit, 7,200 feet of grounding, 59,000 feet of electrical wire, and over 2000 terminations.

More in store

Moody was approved alongside three other BESS across the state, totaling 715 MW. Georgia Power is nearing completion of those projects in Bibb, Cherokee, and Floyd counties, which were previously approved in the 2023 IRP Update.

The Georgia PSC also approved the construction of nine additional BESS facilities strategically placed on eight sites throughout the state, adding more than 3,000 MW of additional planned storage.  The sites were selected based on deployment capabilities, including opportunities to locate additional resources at existing company plant sites, existing company-owned land, and proximity to substations or current company facilities. New BESS facilities include locations at Plants Bowen, Hammond, McIntosh, Wansley and Yates as well as stand-alone locations in Hall and McDuffie counties.

Georgia Power has also been approved for two new state-of-the-art solar systems paired with battery storage for a combined capacity of 350 MW. These projects are designed to maximize high solar irradiance while minimizing land disturbance and will be built in Laurens and Dougherty counties.

Turning up the Heat

Thermal battery pioneer Antora Energy is promising to break the bottleneck stymying growth of American industries from factories to data centers, and a whole bunch of investors are buying what they’re selling.

Last week, the company closed on a whopping $550 million in Series C funding. The oversubscribed round was co-led by G2 Venture Partners and Eclipse, with participation from new investors including Ribbit Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Activate Capital, John Doerr, Westly Group, StepStone Group, and Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures. Existing investors also contributed to the round, including Decarbonization Partners, Impact Science Ventures, Trust Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Lowercarbon Capital.

Antora says the Series C will accelerate its deployment of large-scale projects across the United States, enable the company to expand production and establish a second U.S. manufacturing hub, and further strengthen a growing domestic supply chain.

“This financing unlocks a new phase of growth for Antora,” assessed Nehali Jain, VP of strategy and growth at Antora. “This funding round is how we deploy more projects, more quickly, across more sectors and geographies.”

What are thermal batteries?

Antora’s thermal batteries “charge” while the sun is out and intermittent, low-cost energy like solar power is abundant, storing electricity as heat in insulated blocks of solid carbon to later deliver as heat or power. Unlike conventional lithium-ion batteries, Antora’s systems can store energy for multiple days, and the same factory-built modules can serve a chemical plant, a food producer, a steelmaker, a data center, or the grid, without supply-constrained critical minerals or multi-year construction timelines.

The funding announcement comes on the heels of Antora’s deployment of one of the largest battery storage projects in the world, Project Big Stone, a 5 gigawatt-hour (GWh) system (pictured above) in South Dakota that advanced from initial construction to delivering energy in under 12 months. Antora now intends to scale that approach through its pipeline of signed agreements with hyperscalers and industrial leaders.

“Antora has moved beyond proving the technology to demonstrating it can manufacture and deploy at remarkable speed and scale,” said Joe Fath, partner and head of growth at Eclipse. “Antora has the team, technology, and execution capabilities to become a foundational part of America’s energy infrastructure.”

Antora’s San Jose, California factory, which opened in 2024 and recently expanded into a three-building manufacturing campus, ranks among the country’s largest battery gigafactories.

Speed to Power in Southeast Asia

International solar developer ib vogt has begun commercial electricity generation at its Tantangan Solar Power Plant in South Cotabato, Philippines, less than one year after the project’s groundbreaking. The project was recognized as a key national priority under the Philippines’ clean energy agenda.

At 99 megawatt-peak (MWp), Tantangan Solar is considerably larger than most solar projects in the Philippines, which traditionally range between 10-50 MWp. It is ib vogt’s second solar project in Mindanao and represents one of the region’s most significant renewable energy developments to date.

ib vogt will integrate solar generation with battery storage to develop a near-baseload clean energy solution for a region where electricity demand structurally outstrips supply and grid reliability remains a persistent constraint. Once fully operational, Tantangan Solar is expected to generate more than 150 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of clean electricity annually – enough to power over 82,000 households – while avoiding more than 66,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions each year.

“Energizing this project is a special milestone for ib vogt: it is our first solar-and-storage hybrid in Southeast Asia and the first of more than 500 MW of hybrid capacity we expect to have in operation and construction across the Philippines by the end of 2026. Reaching this point in Mindanao carries particular meaning for our team, because it is where we energized our first project in Asia,” stated David Ludwig, CEO of ib vogt APAC.

Go big or go home

Although the Philippines is home to plenty of small-scale solar, it also hosts some ambitious and particularly large photovoltaic projects, most notably Meralco Terra (MTerra), touted as the world’s largest integrated solar and battery storage facility. Once completed, MTerra will be capable of delivering up to 3,500 MW peak of solar power to the grid, supported by 4,500 megawatt-hours (MWh) of battery energy storage. Phase I is expected to become fully commercially operational later in August. Phase II began early this year and is targeted for completion by 2027.

MTerra’s inauguration came less than two years after President Marcos led the groundbreaking of the project located in Gapan City, Nueva Ecija. In his speech during the inauguration, the President of the Philippines said the project reflects the government’s commitment to turning its energy plans into concrete results as the country seeks to diversify its power sources and reduce its vulnerability to fluctuations in global fuel prices.

From the Rooftops

Northern Illinois has become a hotspot for community solar development, and ComEd threw gas on the fire late last week, announcing plans to develop five dozen rooftop projects with Solar Landscape and Public Storage over the next two years. 10 of those projects are already electrified- in total, the 60 installations will deliver 44 MW to the local grid, helping decrease energy costs.

Solar Landscape, the largest commercial rooftop solar developer in the nation, is working with leading self-storage operator Public Storage to convert underutilized storage facility rooftops into energy-producing assets. The Illinois portfolio covers approximately five million square feet of rooftop space.

Once completed, the projects are expected to generate enough electricity each year to power approximately 6,150 households while delivering an estimated $750,000 in annual electricity bill savings for subscribers, more than $36 million over the life of the projects. The average residential subscriber is expected to save approximately $120 annually on electricity costs.

“With demand for power rising faster than supply, community solar sites like this one offer a clean energy solution that can help close the supply gap and offer bill savings for customers,” explained ComEd president and CEO Gil Quiniones.

“Commercial rooftops represent one of the fastest, most scalable opportunities to expand the electric grid using infrastructure that already exists,” suggested Shaun Keegan, CEO of Solar Landscape. “This portfolio demonstrates how utilities, property owners, and private capital can work together to deploy clean energy at meaningful scale.”

Public Storage plans to expand its solar rooftop installations to 1,300 or more by the end of 2026.

ComEd already boasts one of the largest community solar portfolios in the country. The Exelon utility anticipates having more than 400 sites completed by the end of 2026. To date, more than 1.8 GW of distributed energy resources (DERs) have been connected, making Illinois the leading midwestern state for DER capacity.

Moving Soil for Solar

ALLETE company Minnesota Power has broken ground at its Boswell Solar project, an 85 MW staple of the Boswell Energy Center site in Cohasset, Minnesota.

Boswell will be built on about 500 acres and include more than 178,000 solar panels, with operations targeted for mid-2027. The project will connect to existing Minnesota Power infrastructure, accelerating the construction timeline.

“The transition to cleaner energy gives us the tremendous opportunity to strengthen local economies, create jobs, and build a more resilient energy system – all while reducing emissions,” offered ALLETE CEO Bethany M Owen. “But success is measured not only by what we build – but how we build it. It is measured by whether people and communities like Cohasset are better off because of it.”

Boswell, along with the Regal Solar project near Royalton, Minnesota, is part of Minnesota Power’s actions to meet the up-to-300 MW of regional solar generation called for in Minnesota Power’s Integrated Resource Plan approved by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) in 2023. Regal Solar will have a capacity of 119.5 MW and will tie to the regional electric grid via a new 3.5-mile collector line and substation.