Fermi America says its 11 GW Private HyperGrid Campus, a facility it calls Project Matador, has reached a key step in the Texas air-permitting process for an initial 6 gigawatts of natural gas generation. The permitting milestone marks progress for what the company describes as the world’s largest private energy grid, as demand for reliable, behind-the-meter electricity continues to rise across data center and industrial sectors.
Texas Regulators Clear 6 GW First Phase
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality conducted a formal public meeting for Fermi Equipment Holdco, LLC, the entity behind the project, under docket identifiers 181009, PSDTX1670, and GHGPSDTX254. Those identifiers correspond to Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) and greenhouse-gas permitting tracks, which are part of the air-authorization process for large stationary sources. The public meeting is one of the procedural steps TCEQ uses in reviewing air permit applications, including opportunities for public comment.
Preliminary approval for the first 6 GW phase covers a substantial share of the campus’s planned 11 GW total capacity. For context, 6 GW is roughly the equivalent output of six large nuclear reactors or enough electricity to power several million homes at typical load factors, underscoring the sheer scale of the proposal. The fact that this capacity sits on a single private campus, rather than being distributed across a regulated utility’s service territory, sets Project Matador apart from conventional generation projects. Readers who want to track the permit’s progression can search TCEQ’s air permitting portal, which provides status updates, technical support documents, and draft or final permit language for active applications statewide.
Fuel and Turbine Deals Lock In Supply Chain
A clean air permit means little without fuel. Fermi America pointed to fuel supply in an October 2025 announcement when it secured a firm natural gas supply agreement with Energy Transfer to power phase one of the HyperGrid Campus. Locking in firm supply and transportation terms is intended to reduce fuel-delivery risk during periods of system stress, including extreme weather events. Firm contracts typically carry take-or-pay obligations and priority transportation rights, giving both parties financial incentive to maintain delivery even under stressed conditions and helping anchor the economics of a multi-gigawatt buildout.
On the hardware side, the company also reached an agreement with Mobile Power Solutions for 157.5 MW of GE TM2500 mobile gas turbines, adding fast-start generation assets that can come online in minutes rather than hours. According to the company’s announcement, the turbines are intended to deliver additional power for the 11 GW private energy grid and to bolster reliability during ramp-up. Mobile turbines are typically used as bridge generation while permanent combined-cycle plants are being built, but they also serve as standby reserves during peak demand or equipment outages, providing insurance against construction delays or unexpected maintenance. Together, the fuel deal and turbine procurement suggest Fermi is building redundancy into the campus from day one rather than treating it as an afterthought, a design choice aimed squarely at customers that cannot tolerate power interruptions.
Why a Private Grid Changes the Calculus
Most large-scale generation in Texas feeds into ERCOT, the state’s wholesale electricity market, where power is dispatched based on system-wide needs and price signals. Project Matador operates on a different model. As a private grid, it would generate and consume power behind the meter, serving on-site industrial loads such as data centers, cryptocurrency mining, or advanced manufacturing without placing additional strain on the public transmission network. That distinction matters because ERCOT has faced repeated warnings about thin reserve margins during extreme weather, and new demand from artificial intelligence workloads is expected to tighten those margins further as hyperscale facilities seek hundreds of megawatts apiece.
A private campus of this scale also sidesteps some of the interconnection queue delays that have slowed utility-scale projects across the country, where generators seeking to connect to the public grid can wait years for transmission studies and upgrades. By keeping generation and load co-located, Fermi avoids that bottleneck entirely and can, in principle, move from permit approval to construction on a timeline dictated more by engineering and financing than by regional planning processes. The tradeoff is that a private grid must finance its own substations, lines, and backup systems without the rate-base recovery mechanisms available to regulated utilities, which means the project’s economics depend on securing long-term offtake customers willing to pay a premium for reliable, dedicated power and service-level guarantees that go beyond typical utility obligations.
Clean Gas Label Faces Scrutiny
Fermi America describes its natural gas facilities as “clean,” a characterization that aligns with the lower carbon intensity of gas compared to coal but invites legitimate questions about absolute emissions. A 6 GW gas-fired complex, even one running high-efficiency turbines, will produce substantial volumes of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides over its operational life, especially if dispatched at high capacity factors to serve around-the-clock digital loads. The PSD and greenhouse gas permits issued under TCEQ’s process require the facility to meet Best Available Control Technology standards, but those standards set a floor, not a ceiling, on emissions performance and do not, on their own, deliver net-zero outcomes.
The tension here is real. Toby Neugebauer, Fermi America’s founder and CEO, has framed the company as pioneering “next-generation electric grids” that deliver highly redundant power for mission-critical users, positioning gas-fired generation as a pragmatic bridge that can be built at scale today. Supporters argue that concentrating new demand on a purpose-built site with modern controls is preferable to overloading an aging public grid, and that gas can complement intermittent renewables by providing firm capacity. Critics counter that locking in 11 GW of new fossil infrastructure risks crowding out investment in lower-carbon alternatives and could become a stranded asset if policy or market pressures tighten around emissions. How Fermi addresses questions about carbon management, potential future retrofits, and the role of complementary clean resources will shape whether Project Matador is seen as a forward-looking grid innovation or as a supersized bet on yesterday’s fuel.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
