LandGate Resources

To check power pricing and grid congestion for a solar or wind site, pull the historical locational marginal price (LMP) at the pricing node (P-node) where the project would inject power, split it into its energy, congestion, and loss components, and compare it with the nearest trading hub. Then measure how often that node clears at negative prices, check curtailment history in the surrounding zone, and pair the price view with substation capacity and interconnection queue da

Environmental blind spots destroy project economics faster than interconnection bottlenecks. See what to check for and how to use LandGate for solar due diligence.

U.S. data centers used about 176 TWh of electricity in 2023 and could use 325 to 580 TWh by 2028, according to a DOE-commissioned report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The U.S. Department of Energy argues that this surge can be met with clean generation, storage, grid upgrades, efficiency, and flexible demand. For developers, that turns the siting question into a power question: the best sites will be the ones where grid headroom, clean supply, and buildable land

On September 23, 2026, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority selected nearly 1.7 gigawatts of clean energy capacity: 950 megawatts of lithium-ion battery storage across eight projects, and 719 megawatts across 13 large-scale solar, wind, and hydroelectric projects. The storage awards range from 4 to 8 hours of duration, with the largest single project, a 150 megawatt, 4-hour system from Key Capture Energy, sited in Suffolk County, and an 8-hour, 140 meg

By serving as anchor subscribers, accelerating distribution-level grid investment, and leaving behind land that doesn't fit their own footprint, data centers are opening up some of the most attractive community solar sites in the country.

After four posts on vocabulary, market forces, colocation strategy, and due diligence, this final post in the series answers the question every developer actually wants a straight answer to: which states currently have the most real, available grid capacity for a large data center, solar farm, wind project, or battery storage site. The ranking below is built directly from LandGate's own platform data, not survey responses or self-reported figures. The colocation ranking The t

The 5-step process for finding and screening community solar sites with LandGate looks like this: sizing up the market and competition, filtering parcels by location and grid proximity, screening each site for physical and legal constraints, drilling into grid-level detail to catch fatal upgrade costs, and finally running the economics to make a clear go/no-go decision.

Whether you're evaluating a parcel for a data center campus or a utility-scale solar, wind, or battery storage project, the underlying question is the same: is this land actually powered, or is it just zoned. Parts 1 through 3 of this series covered the vocabulary and the market forces behind that question. This post turns it into a practical, step-by-step checklist you can run against any real site. Step 1: Confirm substation distance and available capacity Identify the near

Faced with interconnection queues that stretch past six years in some markets, data center developers have started buying power directly from solar, wind, and battery storage projects instead of waiting on the public grid. This is the piece of the power crisis that connects two audiences who used to operate separately: renewable energy developers, who now have a new class of buyer for their electricity, and data center developers, for whom a well sited solar or storage projec

Available transfer capacity, interconnection queue position, and offtake capacity are the three terms that now decide whether a data center or renewable energy site actually works, before land price, tax incentives, or fiber ever enter the conversation. If you can't quickly answer "how much power can this substation actually deliver, and how long until it's available," you don't yet have enough information to evaluate a site. This guide defines the terms that matter, in plain

In this guide, we break down how transmission planning models are used for data center site selection and generation interconnection, detail key regional model standards (MMWG, MTEP, SSWG, RTEP), and present a comprehensive directory of the 189 transmission planning models integrated directly into LandGate's vertical intelligence software and AI Data Agent.

At a specific bus in southern Dallas County, the ERCOT 2025 planning model shows approximately 915.8 MW of Available Transfer Capability for generation injection — and 0 MW for additional load. LandGate's project database maps a 550 MW planned hyperscale data center development to that same node. Half a gigawatt of demand is queued for a location the planning model shows cannot currently take it. The regional ERCOT local forecast shows steady demand growth across North Texas

Land scarcity has become the binding constraint on energy and data center development, yet lease encumbrance remains one of the least systematically underwritten risks in the site selection process. Teams model interconnection queues, transmission proximity, and permitting timelines with real rigor. Fewer apply the same discipline to a more basic question: what is already recorded against this parcel, and by whom. Recorded lease data, originating with Topos and now available

Utility interconnection queues have stretched into multi-year waits, and hyperscalers can no longer afford to wait in line. That timeline pressure is pushing data center operators to look past traditional grid connections and toward direct power partnerships instead. For energy developers, this shift is an opening, but only for those who know how to find it. Winning a behind-the-meter (BTM) deal isn't just about being available. It requires knowing which operators are facing

Local government opposition to renewable infrastructure has shifted from isolated zoning hearings to systematic, region-wide restrictions. Here is how four key markets illustrate where utility-scale solar is blocked, constrained, or facing rapid statutory shifts.

Farmland opposition to solar didn't emerge from nowhere, and it isn't purely local. A handful of forces have converged over the past few years to turn prime farmland into one of the highest-risk categories a developer can option.

For solar developers, investors, and lenders, knowing that a project will generate well and clear an economic screen is necessary but not sufficient. Before capital moves, someone has to see the full financial statement: what the project costs to build, what it earns and spends every year, how it is financed, and whether the cash it throws off actually covers its debt. That is what LandGate's Solar Pro Forma provides. Where an economic report distills a project into a single

For solar developers, investors, and asset managers, a project lives or dies at the intersection of three questions: can it connect to the grid, what will it earn where it settles, and how do those economics compare to real projects nearby. A strong resource and a clean parcel mean little if the interconnection triggers millions in network upgrades, if the project's pricing node sits well below the trading hub, or if comparable projects are signing offtake at prices this one

Proposed transmission lines are electric transmission projects that have been announced, planned, or are under development but have not yet been constructed or energized.

For solar developers, investors, and asset managers, confirming that a site has strong sun and clean, buildable land is only the starting point. The harder physical question is how the project will actually perform: exactly how much electricity it will generate, when that generation lands across the hours of a day and the seasons of a year, and how steadily that output will decline as the equipment ages. Those questions sit at the heart of LandGate's Solar 8760 & Long Term Ge