Upper Macungie Township, Lehigh County
TierPoint bought the TekPark campus in 2025 and is expanding it toward 100 megawatts, and state regulators have approved PPL's new lines to a new substation on the site.
PPL presented the customer's power request to PJM on July 18, 2024 and its proposed fix on September 19, 2024, and added it to its local plan on March 18, 2025. On October 23, 2025, TierPoint announced it had bought the TekPark campus and started a 100 megawatt power expansion. PPL asked the PUC to approve its new TEK Park lines on May 1, 2026, and DEP published PPL's stormwater permit application for the first line on May 23, 2026. In July 2026 PPL told the PUC the customer now uses about 30 megawatts. The PUC approved the lines on August 6, 2026, and on August 29, 2026 DEP announced it intends to issue the stormwater permit for the second line.
Update, October 26, 2026. In a tour report presented to the Lower Mount Bethel Township supervisors on October 19, 2026, Supervisor John Mauser wrote that TierPoint's Breinigsville data center runs at 28 megawatts with plans to increase to 100 megawatts. The report says the site has 15 generators of 2.5 megawatts and 8 redundant generators of 2.0 megawatts that are tested every two weeks, that the older section built in 1987 uses an evaporative cooling system that may use up to 3 million gallons of water a month from a public water source, and that the newer section uses a closed-loop system.
PPL puts the new lines at about $4.6 million: the customer pays for the $2.7 million first phase and PPL pays for the $1.9 million second phase, and the PUC's order says its approval doesn't address how those costs are recovered. PPL also told the PUC that about 40 more megawatts of load in the area would overload a Breinigsville Substation transformer if the other one were lost.
Pennsylvania Public Utility CommissionPPL will remove one transmission structure and put up 19 new ones ranging from about 56 to 125 feet tall, in a right-of-way about 100 feet wide on PPL and customer land.
Pennsylvania Public Utility CommissionDEP's notices show PPL's two line projects disturbing about 6.7 and 11.78 acres, with stormwater draining to Breinig Run, Little Lehigh Creek and its tributaries, which DEP lists as high-quality cold water fisheries.
Pennsylvania BulletinDEP's tracker expects the expansion to need air quality and storage tank permits, and none had been submitted as of October 22, 2026.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental ProtectionPPL sought approval for about 0.5 miles of new double-circuit lines to the new customer-owned TEK Park 138/69-13 kV substation and about 0.75 miles of new lines from the Breinigsville Substation. The PUC found the filing in the public interest, noted that no protests were filed, and said its approval doesn't address cost recovery.
PPL Electric Utilities Corporation · Approved August 6, 2026In Pennsylvania, the local zoning ordinance sets the route. A conditional use is decided by the elected governing body (supervisors, commissioners or council). A special exception or variance, and an appeal of a zoning officer’s decision, go to the Zoning Hearing Board. Each is a public hearing on a record: affected neighbors can ask for party status, cross-examine witnesses, and appeal. Municipalities can also adopt data center ordinances with enforceable standards.
Know your rights →Organized community opposition is the single most effective check on these projects in Pennsylvania. Show up to hearings, submit comment when it is taken, support legal and expert-witness costs, and press your municipality for a real ordinance. Pennsylvania municipalities cannot simply freeze applications, but a curative amendment under the Planning Code gives them a defined window to fix a defective ordinance.
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