Shawnee County

Moratoriums and bans

1. July 14, 2026 Topeka: Moratorium. The council unanimously paused data centers and battery storage for 12 months, then amended it in August to bar city utility connections for data centers inside or outside city limits. (KSNT 27 News, July 14, 2026; KSNT 27 News, Aug. 12, 2026)
2. Aug. 13, 2026 Shawnee County: Moratorium. The county will not accept or decide new data center land use applications, or take final action on the pending Compass application, until Feb. 17, 2027. (KSNT 27 News, Aug. 13, 2026)

Updates, newest first

1. Sept. 9, 2026 Compass Datacenters campus, southwest of Topeka · The county deemed the application complete and began full review; no hearing was set. (Shawnee County Land Use & Development, Sept. 9, 2026)
2. Aug. 28, 2026 Compass Datacenters campus, southwest of Topeka · Compass filed revised exhibits, including an Evergy will-serve letter and a revised sound survey. (Shawnee County Land Use & Development, Sept. 9, 2026)
3. Aug. 27, 2026 Compass Datacenters campus, southwest of Topeka · Kansas Reflector quoted a Topeka commercial broker estimating about $122 million a year in property taxes if the campus is appraised at $3 billion; this is an estimate, not a county figure. (High Plains Public Radio (Kansas Reflector), Aug. 27, 2026)
4. Aug. 13, 2026 Compass Datacenters campus, southwest of Topeka · County commissioners adopted a six-month moratorium that also bars final action on the Compass application. (KSNT 27 News, Aug. 13, 2026)
5. Aug. 13, 2026 Shawnee County: Moratorium · The county will not accept or decide new data center land use applications, or take final action on the pending Compass application, until Feb. 17, 2027. (KSNT 27 News, Aug. 13, 2026)
6. Aug. 6, 2026 Compass Datacenters campus, southwest of Topeka · KSNT summarized the filing: 10 single-story buildings on just over 600 acres with an on-site substation, and a 400 MW critical load at completion. (KSNT 27 News, Aug. 6, 2026)
7. Aug. 4, 2026 Compass Datacenters campus, southwest of Topeka · County staff found the application incomplete. (Shawnee County Land Use & Development, Sept. 9, 2026)
8. July 24, 2026 Compass Datacenters campus, southwest of Topeka · Compass filed conditional use permit application CU-26-203. (Shawnee County Land Use & Development, Sept. 9, 2026; KSNT 27 News, July 27, 2026)
9. July 14, 2026 Topeka: Moratorium · The council unanimously paused data centers and battery storage for 12 months, then amended it in August to bar city utility connections for data centers inside or outside city limits. (KSNT 27 News, July 14, 2026; KSNT 27 News, Aug. 12, 2026)

Statewide

SB 98 (signed April 24, 2025; in effect July 1, 2025) offers a qualified firm a sales tax exemption lasting 20 years from the start of operations on the costs of building, equipping and servicing a qualified data center (electricity is not an eligible cost). To qualify, the firm must commit to at least $250 million in eligible investment by its fifth year of operations, start construction within 10 years of its agreement with the Secretary of Commerce, create and keep 20 new jobs within two calendar years, adopt water conservation and reuse practices and buy power for 10 years from the utility certified for the site; after an uncured breach (120 days' notice), Commerce may recover or end the exemption. The enrolled text reviewed sets no application deadline or sunset for the exemption itself. (Kansas Legislature, April 24, 2025; Kansas Legislative Research Department, 2025; Kansas Legislature, April 11, 2025) SB 98 also requires the Secretary of Commerce to get approval from the state's fusion center oversight board before giving any public financial help to a qualified data center, after the Kansas Intelligence Fusion Center reviews its equipment and software for threats to critical infrastructure; the board may approve, require changes or deny. The same bill amended K.S.A. 66-101j so a qualified data center cannot receive an electric utility's economic development rate discount. (Kansas Legislature, April 11, 2025; Kansas Legislative Research Department, 2025) KCC docket 25-EKME-315-TAR: Evergy filed its Large Load Power Service (LLPS) tariff for its Kansas Central and Kansas Metro territories on Feb. 11, 2025; all active parties (including the Data Center Coalition, Google, the Sierra Club and NRDC, per trade press) filed a unanimous settlement on Aug. 18, 2025, and the commission approved it on Nov. 6, 2025. The plan covers new or expanding loads of 75 MW or more (CURB's wording; the KCC's briefing and Utility Dive say above 75 MW), sets a 12-year minimum term after up to five years of ramp, bills at least 80% of contract demand, requires collateral of up to two years of minimum bills and puts loads of 25 MW or more through a queue that moves up to four projects at a time; it applies only to Evergy, not to cooperatives or municipal utilities such as KCK's Board of Public Utilities. (Kansas Corporation Commission, Jan. 15, 2026; Citizens' Utility Ratepayer Board, 2025; Utility Dive, Nov. 10, 2025) Estimates of how much more LLPS customers will pay than existing large industrial customers differ by source: 7% to 10% (KCC staff, as cited from the order by Utility Dive) or 8% to 10% on an all-in bill basis and 16% to 19% on base demand and energy charges (the KCC's January 2026 legislative briefing); these are projected rate differences, not bills paid. Evergy's February 2025 filing reported more than 20 prospective large-load customers totaling over 6 GW in Kansas, per Utility Dive. (Kansas Corporation Commission, Jan. 15, 2026; Utility Dive, Nov. 10, 2025) 2026 session: SB 531, requested by Sen. Murphy, would have barred new large-load data centers in any county with a drought emergency declared in the prior three years; it died in committee. KMUW reported that Senate Majority Leader Chase Blasi had earlier urged, then unsuccessfully sought to legislate, a three-year pause in drought counties. Other 2026 data center bills listed by trackers (SB 400 on closed-loop cooling, SB 526 on zoning eligibility for the SB 98 exemption) were not opened in the Legislature's records for this review. (Kansas Legislature, April 10, 2026; KMUW, May 7, 2026) Citizen-initiated ordinances under K.S.A. 12-3013 were tried in several cities in 2026: petitions to ban large or 'high impact' data centers were certified or verified in Edgerton and Ottawa and filed in El Dorado and Emporia. Edgerton, El Dorado and Emporia asked district courts whether the measures are a proper subject for initiative, and Ottawa residents sued their city. Judges ordered the Emporia and Ottawa questions onto the November 2026 ballot while validity is decided, and ruled for the El Dorado petitioners, leaving that city to adopt the ordinance or put it to voters; Edgerton's case was pending. (City of Edgerton, July 24, 2026; KWCH 12, Aug. 25, 2026; WIBW, Aug. 20, 2026; KSHB 41, Sept. 3, 2026) Kansas data centers →