Last July, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick announced plans for a $5 billion data center in York County.
The luminaries in attendance at the “Pennsylvania Energy & Innovation Summit” on July 15, 2025, included President Donald Trump and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. The event touted the future of energy and the state’s role in powering the next generation in artificial intelligence.
During the summit, McCormick announced that an entity called Energy Capital Partners, an investment group headquartered in northern New Jersey, would be building a $5 billion data center in Peach Bottom Township in southeastern York County, adjacent to the York Energy Center, a gas-fired generation station it owned.
The announcement sparked a celebration among some officials in York County. Five billion dollars dwarfed other development investments in the county.
Kevin Scheiber, CEO of the York County Economic Alliance, described the project as “a big win for York County.” York County President Commission Julie Wheeler said it was “just another example of how we’re building a better York County that’s at the leading edge of economic progress.”
They didn’t celebrate in Peach Bottom Township, a rural township in the southeastern corner of York County. The township, bordered in the south by Maryland and to the east by the Susquehanna River, has a population of about 5,100 people in its nearly 30 square miles of woods and farmland. The township’s budget calls for spending just $1.7 million, with the bulk of that spent on road maintenance.
Township officials were caught off guard by the Peach Bottom plans. It was the first time they’d heard anything about a data center, much less one that might cost $5 billion, said Sarah Hebert, the township’s secretary-treasurer.
And, in some ways, it was also the last.
Since the announcement, Hebert said, “nobody has contacted us at all regarding it.”
No formal plans have been filed with the township, and, according to Hebert, no one’s shared any details about the project.
Reevaluating the project
There may be an explanation for that.
Constellation, the largest private-sector power producer in the United States that acquired the York Energy Center in January, told the York Daily Record in a written statement that the company “is reevaluating the technical and commercial feasibility of a potential center at that site.”
A company spokesperson did not comment on a possible timeline for when that evaluation could be completed.
A McCormick spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
When the project was first announced, Energy Capital Partners owned a company called Calpine, which owned the York Energy Center, a 828-megawatt power plant on Pikes Peak Road, and had planned on tapping its generation to power the massive data center.
It appeared to be a prime location for such a center. It was remote, in a rural area, limiting complaints from neighbors, and had access to the massive amount of electricity required to power it from the gas-fired plant and from the nearby Peach Bottom Clean Energy Center, a nuclear power plant owned by Constellation.
At the time of the announcement, Energy Capital Partners was working on a deal to sell Calpine to Constellation, a deal that was announced in January 2025.
Constellation’s $26.6 billion acquisition of Calpine was completed in January 2026.
But there was a hitch, one that put plans for the data center in jeopardy.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division filed suit to block the sale, citing concerns that “the acquisition would create the largest wholesale power generator in the United States and increase the likelihood that the combined firm would profitably withhold electricity from one or more of its plants,” according to a DOJ press release.
To settle that suit, Constellation agreed to sell six power plants in Delaware, Texas and Pennsylvania. One of those plants, according to the settlement, is the York Energy Center.
The sale of York Energy Center changed the economics of building a massive data center. Constellation said in its statement, “If our ongoing evaluation identifies a project that is commercially viable, aligned with township policies and beneficial to the local community, we will present the proposal to the township.”
Meanwhile, in Peach Bottom
The township is proceeding as if plans are on the way. It began working on an ordinance to regulate data centers last year and, after public workshops and a review by the York County Planning Commission, it is preparing to pass the ordinance at its August meeting.
In writing the ordinance, Hebert said, the township considered residents’ concerns and considered aspects of the development that would be unique to the township. For instance, the ordinance forbids data center operators from drawing water from the underground aquifer, requiring water to be drawn from the Susquehanna River, protecting wells that many residents rely upon.
“We are protecting everything we conceivably can with our ordinance,” Hebert said.
The township, Hebert said, does have a relationship with Constellation. It has worked with the company in the past on power line issues, she said, but “has not heard anything about a data center from them.”
