New Era Energy inks 20-year, 207 MW power deal with Vistra
New Era Energy & Digital has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Luminant ET Services, an affiliate of Vistra Corp., securing a minimum of 200 MW and up to 207 MW of firm power for Phase 1 of its Texas Critical Data Center project in the Permian Basin. The deal, which carries automatic annual renewal options after the initial term, is expected to bring power online by the third quarter of 2027.
The power will be drawn from Vistra's 1,180 MW natural gas-fired generating facility in Odessa, Texas, which sits immediately adjacent to the 493-acre TCDC site. The proximity of the generation asset to the load is a material advantage: it sidesteps the grid interconnection queues that have become a significant bottleneck for data centre developers across the United States in recent years.
The deal
Charlie Nelson, chairman and chief executive of New Era, framed the agreement as the moment the project transitions from a site with a power plan into what he called "permitted powered land." With construction permits already in hand and land secured, the company is now actively marketing Phase 1 capacity to prospective tenants, including hyperscale operators and enterprise customers.
Concurrently with the PPA, New Era and Vistra entered into a development framework agreement covering future power expansion at TCDC and other New Era projects. Under its terms, Vistra will receive a 5% non-voting interest in the portion of the data centre project it serves once power delivery begins. Vistra also gains a right of first refusal on future development opportunities at TCDC and a right of first offer on certain other New Era projects, giving the utility a meaningful stake in the site's long-term buildout toward a stated capacity target of 1.4 GW.
Claudia Morrow, senior vice president of corporate development and strategy at Vistra, said the arrangement gives the power company a platform to evaluate "additional power opportunities" with New Era over time, signalling that the relationship is intended to extend well beyond Phase 1.
Market context
The agreement reflects a broader structural shift in how hyperscale and AI-focused data centre developers are approaching power. With grid interconnection timelines in many US markets stretching beyond five years, behind-the-meter and co-located generation strategies have become increasingly attractive. Vistra, one of the largest competitive power generators in the United States, has been actively pursuing offtake relationships with data centre developers as AI-driven electricity demand accelerates.
New Era is one of several developer-led platforms that have emerged to bridge the gap between power-hungry AI workloads and constrained grid capacity. Competitors in the contracted, behind-the-meter data centre space include larger, better-capitalised platforms with operational track records, which means execution risk remains the central question for prospective tenants evaluating TCDC. The 2027 power delivery timeline and the absence of a named anchor tenant are the near-term milestones investors and the market will watch most closely.
New Era Energy & Digital trades on Nasdaq under the ticker NUAI. The company's investor relations contact is provided through OG Advisory Group.