Mecklenburg County

Moratoriums and bans

1. June 8, 2026 City of Charlotte: Moratorium. 150-day moratorium on new data center rezonings and filings, through Nov. 5, 2026; complete applications filed earlier may proceed. (WFAE, June 8, 2026)

Updates, newest first

1. Oct. 7, 2026 Digital Realty Moores Chapel Road campus · WUNC reported the project may be among those with Duke Energy contracts signed on or before June 1, 2026, which the proposed large-load tariff would not cover. (WUNC / WFAE, Oct. 7, 2026)
2. Oct. 7, 2026 PowerHouse Charlotte campus · WUNC reported the project may be among those with Duke Energy contracts signed on or before June 1, 2026. (WUNC / WFAE, Oct. 7, 2026)
3. June 8, 2026 City of Charlotte: Moratorium · 150-day moratorium on new data center rezonings and filings, through Nov. 5, 2026; complete applications filed earlier may proceed. (WFAE, June 8, 2026)
4. May 2025 Digital Realty Moores Chapel Road campus · City Council approved the rezoning; by October 2025 trees had been cleared and construction timing was not public. (Queen City News (WJZY), via Yahoo News, Oct. 21, 2025)
5. April 21, 2025 Digital Realty Moores Chapel Road campus · Charlotte City Council heard Digital Realty's request to allow about 3 million square feet of data center space on the 156-acre site, which it bought for $160 million in November 2024. (GovTech (The Charlotte Observer, via TNS), April 23, 2025)
6. Jan. 14, 2025 PowerHouse Charlotte campus · PowerHouse said its 122-acre Charlotte campus was in the permitting phase. (Data Center Frontier, Jan. 27, 2025)
7. Sept. 26, 2023 PowerHouse Charlotte campus · Charlotte City Council approved the PowerHouse project, according to Baxtel. (Baxtel, Sept. 26, 2023)

Statewide

G.S. 105-164.13(55a) exempts from state sales and use tax the electricity and support equipment (power, cooling, servers, networking) for a qualifying datacenter: one where the Commerce Secretary finds at least $75 million will be invested within five years and that meets a wage standard for its area and provides health insurance to its full-time employees; the older (55) exemption covers eligible internet datacenters investing $250 million in lower-tier counties. (North Carolina General Assembly, Oct. 20, 2026; North Carolina General Assembly, Oct. 20, 2026) Senate Bill 730, the Ratepayer Protection Act, was rewritten in the House to require utilities to contract with large data centers so they cover the cost of serving them; the House passed it 69-44 on June 3, 2026, and the Senate sent it to its Rules Committee on June 8 with no further action recorded. (North Carolina General Assembly, Oct. 20, 2026; Carolina Journal, June 4, 2026) Duke Energy reached a settlement in October 2026 in its rate cases (NCUC dockets E-7 Sub 1329 and E-2 Sub 1380) making an existing tariff mandatory for data centers and other customers that use large amounts of power nearly all the time, with upfront payment for dedicated facilities such as substations; it would not apply to contracts signed on or before June 1, 2026 and needs Utilities Commission approval. (WUNC / WFAE, Oct. 7, 2026; WUNC / WFAE, Oct. 14, 2026) Local moratoriums rest on G.S. 160D-107; Orange County cited it, and a Superior Court judge ruled in September 2026 that Chatham County's moratorium could not halt a project already under way. (Orange County, N.C., April 21, 2026; NC Newsline, Sept. 22, 2026) North Carolina data centers →