MLGW Told the Council Exactly How Many Data Centers It Serves, What Is in the Queue, and That Nothing New Can Arrive for Six Months.

Sixteen facilities today. Two expansions already approved. Two more requests totaling 350 megawatts that would owe TVA hundreds of millions up front. And ten speculative applications nobody has studied.

MEMPHIS, September 1, 2026 - The president of Memphis Light, Gas and Water gave the Memphis City Council's Planning and Zoning Committee a detailed accounting of the utility's data center pipeline in the middle of a debate over whether to pause new facilities.

He was invited to the table by Councilman Edmund H. Ford Sr. He declined to say whether a moratorium is the right thing to do. He said the Council has time.

What the utility serves now

Memphis Light, Gas and Water serves sixteen data centers, ranging from just under one megawatt to 150 megawatts. He named the customers as AT&T, AutoZone, FedEx, the Internal Revenue Service, Nike, St. Jude, Wright Medical, CTC, xAI and 5C.

Two expansions are already approved and have been in the works since 2024. 5C is getting an additional nine megawatts at the former Fred's headquarters, coming online toward the end of the year. The CTC facility at Pigeon Industrial Park requested 300 megawatts in 2024, was already receiving 150, and the second 150 has been approved and comes on by the end of the year. He said no further approvals are required for either.

What is behind them

Two further requests total 350 megawatts. One is a 5C expansion of about 50 megawatts, studied but with no cost yet determined for the infrastructure to serve it. The other is 300 megawatts in an industrial park, also studied, also with no cost determined. He said both are months-long processes, that the 300 megawatt project must also go to the Tennessee Valley Authority board, and that neither will get traction until after the first of the year and into the first quarter of 2027.

Behind those sit ten speculative applications ranging from about five megawatts to 200 megawatts. None has been studied. He said the queue can run up to a year before a request even reaches study.

His conclusion to the committee was direct: in the next six months, no data center will simply appear.

The price of connecting

He described a new Tennessee Valley Authority requirement effective October 1. Any load above 100 megawatts served by TVA must agree to a higher rate than commercial and industrial customers, and must pay an upfront capacity commitment charge of $1.52 million per megawatt. For a 100 megawatt facility that is $152 million written to TVA before it connects. He put the figure for the pending 300 megawatt project at $450 million. At the stated rate the arithmetic produces $456 million, and the record does not reconcile the two.

He said companies must also pay for every grid improvement needed to serve them, must pay upfront construction costs for infrastructure, and must enroll in a power interruption program. So far this year there have been fifteen curtailment orders for data centers, he said, and all fifteen were complied with, taking facilities from 150 megawatts down to five so power stays available for everyone else. He said residential and commercial customers never see it.

Asked by Councilwoman Janika White about cost shifting, he said unequivocally that no rates have changed for residential, commercial or industrial customers in Memphis and Shelby County because of data centers.

Water

Asked by Councilman J. Ford Canale, he said the largest water users in the system, aggregated through the end of 2025, are the Tennessee Valley Authority, the City of Memphis, PMC Biogenics, Premcor, Valero, Kellogg's, Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Shelby County government, Riviana Foods and St. Jude. The CTC facility was not in the top 25 in 2025 but will likely move to about fifth or seventh by the end of 2026.

He said the utility capped that facility at 1.28 million gallons per day when it agreed to serve, that it has not reached the cap, and that its last count was about 820,000 gallons per day. He said a recycled water facility, estimated for completion in 2028 with construction restarting January 1, 2027, is intended to replace both TVA's and that facility's draw. He said the facility at Tulane uses a closed loop system and takes only domestic water, and that the other smaller data centers are not large water users.

He said the utility will propose a data center water rate when it brings its budget to the Council this year, plus a capacity fee for access to water.

On gas turbines and air pollution he said he is not an expert and would not guess. He said the second 150 megawatts for the Pigeon Industrial Park facility comes in place of temporary generation, that the first set of temporary generators moved off when the first 150 came from the grid, and that the rest move off when the second comes on this fall. He said he does not know the total number operating.

He offered to return quarterly with an update on what has been applied for and where each request stands.

What happens next

The utility president offered to come back quarterly with a queue update. No date was set. He said the utility will propose a data center water rate and a water capacity fee during this year's budget process.

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