Welcome back to The Month in Infrastructure, an analysis of the top trends affecting the built environment and the people who work in it.
Earlier this summer, the main theme in energy was bottlenecks. August was about what happens when people stop waiting for bottlenecks to clear. Texas froze its data center interconnection queue. The Army committed $2.2 billion to nuclear microreactors that bypass the commercial grid entirely. Investors poured record capital into solar projects paired with on-site storage rather than betting on transmission capacity that may never arrive.
Meanwhile, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell to its lowest level in more than four decades, and researchers signaled that 2027 will bring the largest wave of state energy siting legislation yet. Here’s what the top stories in SmartBrief’s energy and infrastructure newsletters showed.
Texas hits pause on the queue
Data center growth continued to drive infrastructure activity in August, but constraints sharpened considerably. Texas froze new data center connections to its power grid pending a statewide audit, putting a 474 GW interconnection queue on hold. The move came as natural gas demand from the sector was accelerating. It signals that even the most development-friendly state in the country has limits.
More than 66 GW of data center capacity is under construction across North America, an electricity requirement larger than all of Germany. Roughly 77% of that capacity is being built in frontier markets, with West Texas capturing the largest share and Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana and the Carolinas following. These places had almost no data center capacity a decade ago.
The Permian Basin illustrates the strain particularly well. The region’s grid is absorbing pressure from two directions at once, with data center construction on one side and the electrification of oil and gas operations on the other. Peak energy demand in the Permian oilfields can approach 10 GW on its own. Developers are drawn there because the basin already has high-voltage transmission infrastructure and abundant fuel, but the same qualities that make it attractive are creating a competition for capacity that neither industry can win outright.
For contractors, the industrial land and transmission implications are significant. Site selection is increasingly a power availability question rather than a real estate question, and the firms positioned near substations, gas takeaway and water are the ones getting called.
The Army goes around the grid
Arguably the most striking development of the month came from an unexpected direction. The Army announced on Aug. 26 that it had selected five vendors and five installations for its Janus Program, committing up to $2.2 billion to build nuclear microreactors at Fort Benning, Fort Bragg, Fort Campbell, Fort Drum and Fort Hood. General Atomics, BWXT, Westinghouse, Radiant Industries and Antares Nuclear won the awards, with officials anticipating more than 20 microreactors across Department of Defense installations once private investment is layered in.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll framed the awards as building resilience that lets the military project power globally without relying on vulnerable external grids. Jeff Waksman, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, called the effort the “spear tip,” and officials acknowledged they selected five companies specifically because some may fail.
No nuclear microreactors currently supply power to the US commercial grid, and the HALEU fuel supply chain remains a work in progress. But the Army has a hard deadline of Sept. 30, 2028, for an operating reactor at a domestic installation.
The Janus awards are part of a broader move toward micro-solutions. Data center developers facing multiyear interconnection waits are adopting on-site microgrids and behind-the-meter generation at an accelerating pace. Roughly 90 GW of behind-the-meter generation for data centers has been announced nationally, though only about 2 GW of it was operating by mid-2026. The gap between announcement and operation is where the construction opportunity lives.
Energy security pushes back onto the agenda
The Strait of Hormuz disruption continued to reshape energy priorities in August. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve held 289.7 million barrels for the week ending Aug. 21, its lowest level since November 1982 and just over 40% of authorized storage capacity. The reserve started the year at 415 million barrels.
The drawdown has prompted calls from US leaders to modernize and replenish the SPR to better handle future supply shocks, though replenishment is complicated. Returned exchange barrels are expected to arrive over time beginning later this year, but a full rebuild depends on congressional funding, crude prices, salt cavern integrity and infrastructure maintenance at the four Gulf Coast storage sites. There is also a market effect to consider, since government purchases add demand at a moment when several countries are rebuilding stockpiles simultaneously.
Domestically, the response has centered on maximizing refining output to stabilize fuel prices and offset lost global supply. Internationally, the pattern is different. European and Asian nations are accelerating renewable projects specifically to reduce exposure to fossil fuel imports and shipping disruptions. The geopolitical shock is producing opposite responses depending on whether a country is a net energy exporter or importer.
Siting law becomes the main event
The regulatory picture is heading toward a reckoning. Researchers with the Siting Solutions Project said they expect 2027 to be the “biggest year yet” for state energy siting legislation, driven by data center growth and affordability concerns.
The 2026 sessions produced a counterintuitive result worth understanding. Of more than 200 bills tracked across 40-plus states, the majority of introduced legislation aimed to restrict renewable infrastructure. But most of what actually became law was permissive. Of 86 bills that would have hampered solar, wind and battery siting, only one passed. Restrictive proposals largely died in committee or fell to coordinated opposition campaigns.
The caveat matters because the permissive laws that passed were mostly minor improvements to the status quo rather than comprehensive reform, and they weren’t tilted as far toward developers as the failed restrictive bills were tilted against them. Researchers expect notable permissive bills in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Indiana next session.
Permitting friction extends well beyond renewables. Merger reviews for Dominion-NextEra and Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern are ongoing, alongside legal challenges to pipeline and fracking permits. For anyone planning capital projects on a multiyear horizon, regulatory timeline risk is now a line item.
Where the money is going instead
Co-located solar and storage projects attracted a record $25 billion globally in the first half of 2026, nearly double the second half of 2025 and triple the first half of last year, according to BloombergNEF. Standalone utility-scale solar financing went the other way, falling 20% year over year to $75.4 billion, its lowest level since the solar boom began in 2021.
Curtailment, price cannibalization and grid congestion have made standalone generation a harder bet, and pairing solar with batteries on the same site gives developers control over when they sell. Asset finance for standalone solar and onshore wind, which typically accounts for two-thirds of annual renewable investment, made up less than half in the first half of this year.
States are also lowering barriers to geothermal development by improving geological data access and clarifying resource ownership questions, opening another path to firm power that doesn’t depend on transmission buildout.
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