Data Centers in California: New State Laws, Local Moratoria, and What They Mean for Lodi and San Joaquin County

Data Centers in California: New State Laws, Local Moratoria, and What They Mean for Lodi and San Joaquin County

LodiEye — October 2026

Summary

Data centers are large buildings filled with computer servers that run cloud services and artificial intelligence. California is building them and restricting them at the same time. The California Energy Commission estimates that data centers now draw about 1,000 megawatts, roughly 2 percent of peak demand on the state’s main power grid, and projects about 4,500 megawatts by 2040. Pacific Gas and Electric says developers have asked it to serve 12.7 gigawatts of new data center load, more than twelve times what operates statewide today, though only a small share of those requests have signed agreements.^[1][2][3]

Cities and counties have responded quickly. Monterey Park, Coachella and Calexico have adopted permanent bans, and Alhambra voters decide on one November 3. Three counties and about twenty cities have adopted urgency moratoria, which are temporary freezes on new approvals that state law allows for 45 days and up to two years with extensions. About a dozen more jurisdictions are drafting restrictions. San Jose, Santa Clara, Pittsburg and Vernon continue to permit and build.^[10]

On September 21, Governor Newsom signed seven laws on data centers. Together they require data centers to pay for the grid upgrades and power supply they need, end the shortcuts that let some projects skip state environmental review, require public reporting of energy and water use, and require water supply studies before approval. Most take effect January 1, 2027.^[4][5]

San Joaquin County has no data center applications and no data centers in its unincorporated areas. On September 1 the Board of Supervisors ordered a six-month study and asked its lawyers whether a temporary moratorium would hold up legally. Lodi has no data center rules. A proposal to place one near the White Slough wastewater plant was raised at the City Council in May and withdrawn by June. Lodi’s electric system is the main physical limit on any future proposal.^[11][16]

Status as of October 6

San Joaquin County has not adopted a moratorium. The county said the board would consider a 45-day moratorium in October, and no vote had been reported as of this writing. Oakland’s City Council and the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors were both scheduled to act on moratoria on October 6.

Where California stands

There is no official count of data centers in California. The Energy Commission says the state has more than 200 active data centers and that it does not keep a tally. Industry and commercial directories list between 287 and 296. The differences come from what is counted. Directories include every listed site, while cities count only the larger facilities that needed specific permits.^[1][7]

Most of the existing facilities are in Silicon Valley. San Jose says it has about 20 active sites of the size that requires a city permit. In August the city’s project list showed eight more under review and three recently approved. Several are sized just under 100 megawatts, the point at which state oversight of backup power plants becomes stricter. San Jose is writing uniform standards for these projects and expects to bring them to its City Council in December.^[8][9]

The clearest measure of developer interest is the list of requests utilities receive for new service. PG&E’s list has moved sharply from quarter to quarter. It is better read as a sign of demand than as a forecast of what will be built. At the end of June, only four projects totaling 490 megawatts, or about 0.5 gigawatts, had signed agreements. PG&E’s chief executive told analysts in July that the company expects to serve 1.8 gigawatts of new data center load by 2030.^[2][3]

PG&E data center service requests, mid-2025 to June 2026

Gigawatts of requested load. One gigawatt is 1,000 megawatts. Source: PG&E filings and Utility Dive.

PG&E argues that new data center load, priced correctly, lowers bills for everyone else by spreading fixed grid costs over more sales. The company says each gigawatt could reduce customer bills by 1 percent or more. That is a company projection. Whether it holds depends on the rates regulators set, which is what several of the new state laws address.^[2]

Bans and moratoria across the state

The local response began in the San Gabriel Valley early this year and spread to the Imperial and Coachella valleys, the Bay Area and the Central Valley. Most of these actions came before any developer had filed an application. Many cities found that their zoning codes had no definition of a data center, which in some places meant one could be approved as an ordinary industrial building.

Monterey Park voters approved a citywide ban on June 2 by a wide margin. Coachella’s council banned large data centers on August 26, and Calexico’s adopted a ban on September 16. Alhambra already bars data centers in its office and industrial zones and has placed Measure DB on the November 3 ballot to extend the ban citywide. In Los Angeles County, the planning director issued a memo on September 17 halting very large data centers in unincorporated areas while a permanent ordinance is written.^[26][27][31]

Local actions on data centers in California, by type

Counts of cities and counties as of early October 2026. Many entries rest on a single tracker maintained by a data center industry vendor and have not each been checked against city records.

Not every local government has moved to restrict. Tulare County adopted its moratorium on a 4–1 vote, with one supervisor favoring case-by-case review. San Jose continues to seek projects, and Pittsburg approved a 99-megawatt data center in 2024 that is going forward under a legal settlement described below.^[29][23]

The seven state laws

The package signed on September 21 reversed the state’s position from a year earlier, when the governor vetoed a water-reporting bill and signed only a study of whether data centers shift costs to other ratepayers. That study is due from the California Public Utilities Commission on January 1, 2027.^[7]

What each law does

Law	What it does	Key date
SB 886	Directs state utility regulators to set rates under which data centers pay for the grid upgrades and power supply they require, with a fee if a customer leaves within ten years.	Rates due by January 1, 2028
AB 2383	Requires data centers to pay a share of wildfire, public-purpose and similar costs, and to commit to ten years of minimum payments.	Rates due by January 1, 2028
SB 1168	Directs regulators to assess whether rate structures make data centers pay their fair share of transmission and distribution costs.	January 1, 2027
SB 887	Ends the categorical exemptions that let some data centers skip review under the California Environmental Quality Act. Offers faster court review to projects that meet clean-energy, recycled-water and community-benefit conditions.	January 1, 2027
AB 1577	Requires data centers of 10 megawatts or more to disclose expected energy use, on-site generation and noise when applying for permits, and to report annually to the Energy Commission.	January 1, 2027
AB 2619	Requires water-use estimates before a business license is issued and annual reporting of actual use. Adds data centers to local water supply planning.	January 1, 2027
AB 2469	Requires a water supply assessment and a plan for water shortages before approval, with the applicant paying for water infrastructure. Requires disclosure of jobs, wages and local hiring.	January 1, 2028

Source: Governor’s office, Mayer Brown and CalMatters.^[4][5][6][7]

The legislative session ended August 31, so no further state bills are pending this year. No lawsuit against the new laws has been reported. Attorneys who advise the industry expect challenges to specific provisions. In Congress, the House passed a bill on September 16 that asks state regulators to consider making large data centers pay the full cost of the power and grid capacity they add. It does not require them to do so, and it is now in the Senate.^[5][25]

What the courts have decided

The most important rulings so far come from Imperial County, where a developer proposed a campus of about 950,000 square feet and 330 megawatts near the City of Imperial. The county approved an early step, the merging of parcels, without a new environmental study. The City of Imperial and the Sierra Club sued.

On September 9, Judge Brooks Anderholt overturned that approval. He found that the county should have completed environmental review of the whole project before approving any part of it, and ordered a full environmental impact report before grading or construction. The developer has said he will appeal.^[20]

A second ruling went the other way. Imperial County had adopted its own moratorium in June. On August 21, Judge Jeffrey Jones ordered the county to set it aside. State law allows an urgency moratorium only when there is a current and immediate threat to public health, safety or welfare, and the judge found the county’s written findings did not show one. The county has said it is preparing a replacement.^[21][22]

The same developer has two other cases pending: a federal civil rights suit against the City of Imperial and several of its officials, and a suit against the Imperial Irrigation District over its refusal to supply water. Neither has produced a ruling.

In Contra Costa County, the Center for Biological Diversity sued Pittsburg over its 2024 approval of a 99-megawatt data center. The case settled in December 2025. The developer agreed to use 100 percent renewable electricity apart from backup generators, to cool with recycled water, to install solar panels and to pay $750,000 into a climate resiliency fund. In return, the group agreed not to oppose the first phase.^[23][24]

San Joaquin County

The county says it has no active data center applications and no data centers operating in its unincorporated areas, and that its code has no rules written for them. Supervisor Robert Rickman, whose district includes Ripon, Tracy, Mountain House and rural south Manteca, brought the issue to the board. On September 1 the supervisors voted 5–0 to have the Community Development Department study the effects of large data centers on water, electricity, farmland, public safety and county finances. The department asked for six months.^[11][13][15]

The board also asked County Counsel whether an urgency moratorium could be legally supported, and to return with one if so. Accounts of that vote differ. The county’s own announcement and Stocktonia both say no moratorium was adopted and that the board would consider one in October. The Lodi News-Sentinel reported that a 45-day moratorium was approved. The county’s announcement is the official record of the action.^[11][12][14]

Anything the county adopts would apply only outside city limits. Each city decides for itself. Stockton’s City Council voted 7–0 the same day to remove data centers from its economic development plan while it holds listening sessions in each district. That vote did not ban data centers or pause them. Stockton already has one, a floating facility on a barge at the Port of Stockton that employs ten people. No data center rules or applications were found in Tracy, Manteca, Lathrop, Ripon, Escalon or Mountain House.^[12]

San Joaquin County and its neighbors

Jurisdiction	Action	Status
San Joaquin County	Six-month study ordered September 1; possible 45-day moratorium	No moratorium adopted as of October 6
Stockton	Data centers removed from economic development plan September 1	No ban or moratorium
Lodi	Council discussion May 6; White Slough idea withdrawn by June	No ordinance
Patterson	Urgency moratorium, extended August 18	In force to July 15, 2027
Riverbank	Urgency moratorium adopted September 9	Runs to October 13 unless extended
Modesto	Public calls for a moratorium at an August council meeting	No formal action
Calaveras County	Urgency moratorium adopted August 25	Runs to October 9 unless extended
Dixon	Urgency moratorium adopted September 30, covering data centers of 2 megawatts or 5,000 square feet and up	45 days; extension expected
Oakley	Urgency moratorium, extended	In force to April 14, 2027
Pittsburg	99-megawatt data center approved November 2024	Going forward under 2025 settlement

Source: county and city announcements, local news reports and the SAVRN tracker.^{[10][11][12][28]}

With restrictions in place or pending on several sides of the county, developers looking for sites without them may turn to cities here that have large industrial areas and no data center rules. That is a possibility. No applicant has announced such a plan.

Lodi

The Lodi City Council discussed data centers on May 6. Councilmember Cameron Bregman raised the idea of siting one on city-owned land near the White Slough Water Pollution Control Facility and said it could bring the city up to $20 million a year. Mayor Ramon Yepez opposed a very large data center for Lodi, and Councilmember Lisa Craig-Hensley described the idea as a low priority. Electric Utility Director Jeff Berkheimer told the council that the distribution system needed to serve a data center at that location does not exist today. By June, after public opposition, Bregman had withdrawn the idea.^[16][17][30]

Lodi has no ordinance on data centers and no moratorium. The subject has come up again in this year’s City Council campaign ahead of the November 3 election.^[30]

The limit set by the power lines

Lodi Electric Utility is owned by the city and buys much of its power through the Northern California Power Agency. Its power arrives over PG&E transmission lines, and those lines can deliver only so much. According to PG&E’s application for the Northern San Joaquin 230 kV Transmission Project, the existing lines can serve about 180 megawatts of local load, and the project would raise that to about 420 megawatts. The Public Utilities Commission approved the project in July. Construction is expected to start in 2028, with the line in service in 2031.^[18][19]

Lodi’s power import limit compared with one data center

Megawatts. A 99-megawatt data center is the size approved in Pittsburg and common among San Jose proposals. Import limits are from PG&E’s project application.

A single data center of 99 megawatts would equal more than half of what the lines can deliver today, before counting the homes and businesses Lodi already serves. Until the new line is in service, a project of that size could not be served. After 2031 the question becomes one of policy and price.

What the state laws change in Lodi

Beginning January 1, 2027, any data center proposed in Lodi would need at least an initial environmental study, even on land where zoning would otherwise allow it outright. The applicant would have to tell the city how much power the project would use and how much noise it would make. Because the city is also the water supplier, the water-use estimates required before a business license would come to City Hall as well. From 2028, the project would need a water supply assessment paid for by the applicant.^[5][6]

The rate laws are different. SB 886 and AB 2383 work through the Public Utilities Commission, which regulates PG&E and other investor-owned utilities. Lodi Electric Utility is not regulated by the commission. Its rates are set by the City Council. Based on published summaries of the laws, protections that keep a data center’s costs off other customers’ bills would have to be written locally in Lodi. The bill text should be read to confirm whether any provision reaches city-owned utilities.^[5][18]

What the Imperial County ruling means for a local moratorium

The ruling against Imperial County’s moratorium turned on its written findings. Public concern about a project was not enough to show an immediate threat. If the county or a city here adopts a moratorium, findings tied to specific local evidence would be easier to defend. Examples include groundwater conditions, Delta water supply, or a documented limit on the power system such as Lodi’s. Dixon and Brawley both defined a data center by size in megawatts and square feet, which gives an ordinance a clear boundary.^[21][28]

The arguments on each side

The Data Center Coalition, the industry’s trade group, says it shares the goal of responsible growth and warns that heavy regulation could send investment to other states. It cites its own commissioned figures showing several hundred thousand California jobs tied to the industry. Cities that welcome data centers point to tax revenue. San Jose estimates $7.5 million to $8.4 million a year in utility tax for every 100 megawatts of load.^[7][8]

Opponents point to water use, diesel backup generators, noise, and the risk that other customers end up paying for grid upgrades. They also note that a finished data center employs few people. The Stockton facility has ten workers. Environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity have used lawsuits to win conditions on projects, and the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability opposes data centers anywhere in the San Joaquin Valley.^[12][24]

Lawmakers who wrote the new laws say local bans and public opposition changed what was possible in Sacramento. Some supporters say the laws should have gone further.^[7]

Dates to watch

• October 2026: The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors may consider a 45-day moratorium. Moratoria in Calaveras County (October 9) and Riverbank (October 13) expire unless extended.
• November 3, 2026: Alhambra votes on Measure DB. Lodi holds its City Council election.
• December 2026: San Jose’s data center standards go to its City Council.
• January 1, 2027: Most of the seven state laws take effect. The Public Utilities Commission’s study of cost shifting is due.
• Early March 2027: The county’s six-month study period ends.
• January 1, 2028: New data center electric rates are due. Water supply assessments become mandatory.
• 2031: The Northern San Joaquin 230 kV line is scheduled to enter service.

What remains unknown

• Whether San Joaquin County will adopt a moratorium, and what evidence its findings would cite.
• The outcome of the October 6 votes in Oakland and Mendocino County.
• Whether the state’s new rate requirements reach city-owned utilities such as Lodi Electric Utility in any form.
• Whether any developer has approached Lodi, Stockton or other cities in the county since the May discussion.
• The accuracy of local entries that rest only on the industry tracker, including a reported ban in Irwindale that could not be confirmed.
• Whether the developer in Imperial County files an appeal, and how other courts treat moratoria adopted elsewhere.
• How the Public Utilities Commission will design the new rates, which will decide whether data centers lower or raise other customers’ bills in PG&E territory.

About This Report

LodiEye is the original civic-reporting and analysis arm of Lodi411.com, a citizen-run civic data and transparency platform serving Lodi, California and San Joaquin County. LodiEye gathers information of public interest, applies editorial judgment to public records, meetings, and data, and publishes original explanatory reporting for its readers — the work of a newsroom, and a representative of the news media as that term is defined under federal law. Our reporting emphasizes primary sources, public data, and full source transparency so readers can check every claim. LodiEye complements, and does not replace, the other outlets covering this region; for additional reporting on Lodi, San Joaquin County, and the broader region, we also encourage readers to consult the Lodi News-Sentinel, Stocktonia, The Sacramento Bee, CalMatters, and other established news organizations. Our full editorial standards and news-media-status statement is published at lodi411.com/editorial-standards.

This LodiEye report was produced using artificial intelligence tools under the direction and review of the founder. Lodi411 uses multiple AI platforms in its research and publication workflow, including Anthropic’s Claude (primarily Opus and Sonnet models) and Perplexity AI across a variety of large language models offered by each. These tools were used in the following capacities:

Source Discovery: AI-assisted search and retrieval identified the public record on data centers in California: the Energy Commission’s data center page, PG&E’s quarterly filing, the Governor’s signing announcement, the Public Utilities Commission’s project page for the Northern San Joaquin 230 kV line, county and city announcements, court coverage from Imperial County, and reporting by CalMatters, KQED, KPBS, Stocktonia, the Lodi News-Sentinel and others.

Credibility Validation: Official records were preferred over secondary accounts. Where sources disagreed, as with the September 1 county vote, the disagreement is stated and the official record is identified. Entries that rest only on an industry-maintained tracker are labeled as such. Figures commissioned by the industry are identified as industry figures.

Analysis and Synthesis: AI tools helped connect the statewide laws and court rulings to conditions in San Joaquin County and Lodi, including the limit on Lodi’s power imports and the difference between utilities regulated by the state and a city-owned utility.

Presentation: AI tools assisted with drafting, the tables, the three charts and the HTML layout of this page.

Final Review: The founder reviewed the report for accuracy, tone and local relevance before publication.

Lodi411 describes its methods so readers can judge the work for themselves. Corrections and clarifications are welcome at editor@lodi411.com.

References

1. Primary California Energy Commission — Data Centers.
2. Primary PG&E Corporation — Second-quarter 2026 results, filed with the SEC.
3. News Utility Dive — PG&E says it has 12.7 GW in data center pipeline.
4. Primary Office of the Governor — Data center laws signing announcement, Sept. 21, 2026.
5. Legal analysis Mayer Brown — California’s data center laws, September 2026.
6. Legal analysis Mondaq — California enacts seven data center bills.
7. News CalMatters — Newsom clamps down on California data centers, September 2026.
8. Primary City of San Jose Office of Economic Development — Data centers and large energy project uniform standards.
9. News KQED — San José weighs data center benefits as residents raise environmental concerns.
10. Industry tracker SAVRN — California data center moratorium tracker.
11. Primary local San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors — Announcement on large-scale AI data centers, Sept. 2, 2026.
12. Local news Stocktonia — Stockton residents push back on data centers, Sept. 2, 2026.
13. Meeting summary CitizenPortal — San Joaquin supervisors order six-month study.
14. Local news Lodi News-Sentinel — San Joaquin County puts data centers on hold.
15. Local news Manteca Bulletin — Rickman seeks temporary moratorium on data centers.
16. Local news Lodi News-Sentinel — The data debate powers up in Lodi.
17. Meeting summary CitizenPortal — Lodi council opens preliminary discussion on data centers.
18. Primary California Public Utilities Commission — Northern San Joaquin 230 kV Transmission Project, Decision 26-07-042.
19. Local news Lodi News-Sentinel — Lodi transmission upgrade gets green light.
20. News KPBS — Court overturns approval of Imperial County data center, Sept. 9, 2026.
21. Local news The Desert Review — Imperial County reviews next steps after court sets aside moratorium.
22. Primary Imperial County — Update on data center moratorium, August 2026.
23. Primary City of Pittsburg — AVAIO data center settlement agreement.
24. Advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity — Pittsburg settlement announcement, Dec. 16, 2025.
25. News Utility Dive — House passes ratepayer protection bill.
26. News LAist — Alhambra adds data center ban measure to November ballot.
27. News LA Public Press — Monterey Park votes to ban data centers, June 2026.
28. Local news FOX40 — Dixon City Council imposes 45-day moratorium on new data centers.
29. Local news Valley Voice — Agencies take action after outcry against data center construction.
30. Local news Lodi News-Sentinel via Yahoo News — Bregman backtracks on data centers.
31. Local news Los Cerritos News — Los Angeles County moves to ban large AI data centers in unincorporated areas.