This week, the Arizona Corporation Commission voted 5-0 to approve a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility (CEC) for Baccara Power’s proposed 700.2 megawatt natural gas-fired electric generation plant that will provide power to their planned data center complex.
The co-located power generation facility will be located on a county island in western Maricopa county near Luke Air Force Base.
The Arizona Power Plant and Line Siting Committee held its hearing and voted 8-1 to approve the CEC in December 2025, saying the Project met environmental compatibility standards.
Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) Chair Nick Myers explained to the public that the ACC’s job is not to approve or deny the data center, rather its job is to ensure the proposed electric generation and interconnection meet the CEC requirements as outlined in statute.
Takanock, LLC’s president told the Commission that it plans to use cooled chillers, not evaporative coolers, at the data facility which reduces the need for massive amounts of water for cooling. Additionally, the Project plans to utilize wastewater from a nearby brewery and produce potable reclaimed wastewater for use at its facilities, reducing the use of groundwater to nearly zero. All expenses will be paid for by the developer.
Approvals of the Project from Maricopa County and Luke Air Force Base officials are pending.
Vice Chair Rachel Walden voted in favor of the Commission’s recommendation to approve a CEC for developer Takanock’s project, stating, “I voted in support of this matter for two very important reasons. First, the data center will be sited in a zoned ‘heavy industrial’ location that is appropriate for the development of facilities such as these. And second, the data center will bring its own power solution so that the ratepayers in Irrigation District #7 and APS territories are not bearing any of the costs to power the facility.”
Vice Chair Walden went on to note that approving the CEC is only one step in a suite of required permits to proceed with the project.
“Takanock, the project developer, will have to seek and obtain an air permit from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality; a construction permit from the County; approval from Luke Air Force Base and the County for Military Compatibility; and obtain all the requisite permits and demonstrate minimal impacts to the satisfaction of the State Historical Preservation Office and the Arizona Game and Fish Department. All those requirements are outlined in the CEC,” said Walden.
Walden was the lone dissent in a recent vote regarding a separate project contract with Tucson Electric Power known as Project Blue.
“I voted against the approval of a contract I felt did not go far enough in protecting ratepayers from assuming the costs of supplying power to a proposed data center. In the case of Takanock’s proposal, they have addressed all my concerns in this regard, and therefore I voted to support the approval for them to construct a thermal generating plant onsite,” said Vice Chair Walden.
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