Chevron wants a school district tax break for a data center power plant
Why this matters: environmental and climate reporting with long-term consequences.
A major oil company is seeking a state tax break in Texas worth hundreds of millions of dollars to build a massive power plant. The energy won’t be going to residential customers, though. Instead, the gas plant will be used to power a data center whose eventual tenant could be Microsoft. Chevron subsidiary Energy Forge One has filed an application with the State Comptroller’s board to obtain a tax abatement for a power plant it’s building in West Texas. In late January, the comptroller’s office made a recommendation to support the application’s approval — the first such approval under the program for a power plant intended solely for data center use. In March, following news reports that Microsoft was looking into purchasing power from the Energy Forge project, Chevron said that it had entered into an “exclusivity agreement” with Microsoft and Engine 1, an investment fund involved in the project. In January, Microsoft pledged to be a “good neighbor” in communities where it is building data centers, including promising to pay a “full and fair share of local property taxes.” The potential tax abatement for the project comes as big tech companies are battling rising public fury about data centers and electricity costs. It also comes as lawmakers start to cast a more critical eye on ballooning incentives for data centers, some of which have cost some states — including Texas — $1 billion or more each year. Read Next Texas is giving data centers more than $1 billion in tax breaks each year Paul Cobler, The Texas Tribune Chevron spokesperson Paula Beasley told Wired in an email that all tax incentives under consideration for the Energy Forge project “apply solely to the power generation facility” to “support new energy infrastructure, and do not extend to any future data center facilities that may be served.” Beasley also said that there is currently “no definitive agreement” with Microsoft for this power plant. “Microsoft is in discussions with Chevron,” Rima Alaily, Mic