Why developers come here
Pennsylvania sits inside PJM, the grid operator that serves the Mid-Atlantic and much of the Midwest, and it is a net exporter of electricity with a deep bench of gas, nuclear, and retired coal sites. That combination has produced a distinct Pennsylvania play: buy a shuttered power plant with its switchyard and transmission already in place, and build a data center campus that brings its own generation. The Homer City Energy Campus in Indiana County (up to 4,500 MW on a former coal plant site), Aligned’s Project Phoenix at the former Bruce Mansfield plant in Beaver County, and Amazon’s Salem Township campus next to the Susquehanna nuclear station are all versions of this model.
The state also has an uncapped sales and use tax exemption on data center equipment and industrial power averaging 7.87 cents per kWh in 2024 according to EIA, below the national mean. Fiber along I-80 and I-81 and proximity to Northern Virginia round out the pitch.
Incentives
- Sales and use tax exemption. The Computer Data Center Equipment Program began as a capped refund under Act 84 of 2016 ($5 million, raised to $7 million in 2019) and was rewritten by Act 25 of 2021 into an uncapped exemption effective January 1, 2022. Under 72 P.S. Section 9931-D, a certified owner or operator is exempt for 25 full calendar years after the year it applied; a qualified tenant is exempt for up to 10 years. Certification thresholds are reported as $75 million of investment within four years in counties under 250,000 people and $100 million in larger counties, plus at least $1 million in annual payroll at the site; the Department of Revenue certifies applicants. Spotlight PA reports a larger-county threshold of $100 million and 45 jobs, so confirm the current figures with Revenue before relying on them. Equipment used to export more than 5 percent of electricity off site and proof-of-work crypto mining (after 2025) are excluded.
- Cost. Spotlight PA reported in February 2026 that the exemption is projected to cost about $2 billion by mid-2031, rising from $41 million in 2024-25 to $517 million in 2030-31. A repeal bill from Rep. Greg Vitali is pending but its sponsor has said passage is unlikely.
- Local property tax. No statewide abatement exists; deals run through local LERTA and Keystone Opportunity Zone programs.
- 2026 changes. The state budget signed July 12, 2026 requires data centers to report annual energy use to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), with penalties of $10,000 per day for non-compliance, and gives the PUC authority to review utility load forecasts submitted to PJM. Executive Order 2026-05 (August 18, 2026) created the GRID requirements described below.
Power
PJM runs the wholesale market and interconnection queue. PJM’s capacity price hit its cap of $333.44 per MW-day for the third auction in a row, and a one-time backstop auction in September 2026 aims to fill a 6.8 GW shortfall. PJM has said new large loads that do not bring their own generation by June 1, 2027 will be curtailed before other emergency measures.
The Pennsylvania PUC issued a Final Order on May 13, 2026 (Docket M-2025-3054271) establishing a model large-load tariff for customers over 50 MW individually or 100 MW in aggregate. It is guidance for utility tariff filings and covers interconnection studies (with a six-month target), cost responsibility, deposits and collateral, minimum contract terms, load ramps, and exit provisions. PPL Electric got ahead of it: a March 2026 rate settlement includes a large-load tariff for 50 MW at a single site or 75 MW aggregated within 10 miles at 69 kV or above, a minimum 10-year term, ramp schedules up to five years, and security equal to the cost of upgrades. PPL reported about 20 GW of contracted large loads against a 7.8 GW system peak.
Governor Shapiro’s GRID requirements apply to data centers over 25 MW. Developers who sign a DEP Consent Order committing to pay full infrastructure costs, secure incremental generation in the same PJM delivery area on their ramp schedule, meet water conservation standards, and hold community meetings get rolling permit review. Projects that do not comply cannot begin DEP review until every local approval is in hand, and all AI data centers were removed from the Permit Fast Track program. The order also asks the PUC to curtail data centers ahead of other customers in emergencies unless they have secured capacity for their full demand.
Where the projects are
Activity clusters at retired generation sites in the west (Homer City in Indiana County, Bruce Mansfield in Beaver County), the Susquehanna corridor in Luzerne County (Amazon’s Salem Township campus), the anthracite region around Hazleton, and the Lancaster and Harrisburg areas (CoreWeave Lancaster). Suburban Philadelphia and Pittsburgh see smaller proposals on brownfields.
Local politics
Opposition has grown quickly. Hazle Township adopted a 180-day moratorium on June 8, 2026 in response to “Project Hazelnut,” a proposed 15-building, roughly 1,300-acre complex the governor had named a Fast Track flagship. Montour County commissioners denied a rezoning in February 2026 after a citizens’ group gathered about 3,000 signatures. Hampden Township in Cumberland County voted 5-0 against an ordinance that would have allowed data centers in its industrial zones. Kline Township residents are fighting an Amazon proposal near a former chemical dump. State Senator Katie Muth introduced SB 1359 in June 2026 for a three-year statewide moratorium. Polling cited by Inside Climate News found 63 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of Democrats oppose construction near them.
Support comes mostly where a project reuses a closed plant and its tax base, as at Homer City, Shippingport, and Salem Township, and from building trades unions. The governor remains a backer while pushing cost-protection rules.
What a landowner should know
Developers in Pennsylvania want either a retired generation site or several hundred to a few thousand acres near 230 kV or 500 kV transmission; option agreements with 12 to 36 month diligence periods are the norm. Because GRID ties permitting to local approvals, zoning is the real gate: townships control land use and many are adopting moratoria or data-center-specific ordinances, so ask the township whether one is pending before signing. Expect closing to be conditioned on utility studies that PUC guidance says should take about six months. The state contacts are the Department of Community and Economic Development, which runs the PA SITES program and published a Data Center Planning Toolkit in May 2026, and the Department of Revenue’s Office of Economic Development for exemption certification. Annual energy and water reporting to DEP falls on the operator, not the landowner.