Tarboro's 'Net Zero' Data Center Runs on Gas, and the Town Voted It Down 7-1

Key takeaways

• The Tarboro Net Zero Data Center Campus is a $6.4 billion, behind-the-meter data center proposed by Energy Storage Solutions, LLC on roughly 52 acres off Anaconda Road in Tarboro, Edgecombe County, North Carolina.
• The campus's "Net Zero" label refers to an unproven "Carbon Sponge" CO2-capture system bolted onto on-site natural gas and hydrogen generation, not solar: Energy Storage Solutions pledged about $100 million to it and conceded that no data center currently uses the technology.
• The project pairs on-site natural gas (and hydrogen) generation (22 gas units at 3.3 MW, 72.6 MW in the town zoning filing) with a solid-state graphene battery that grew from 250 MW / 1.0 GWh to 300 MW / 1.2 GWh between June and August 2025, all behind the meter.
• Tarboro's Town Council denied the project's Special Use Permit 7-1 on September 8, 2025, finding it would endanger public health and injure neighboring property values, that natural gas supply was not assured, and that the carbon capture was unproven; the project is now recorded as not approved, and Energy Storage Solutions has filed a Superior Court appeal (case 25CV004521-320).
• The estimated cost rose from $1.29 billion in June 2025 to $6.4 billion by August 2025; a separate, larger Energy Storage Solutions project, the roughly $19 billion Kingsboro data center in unincorporated Edgecombe County, is a distinct campus that would sell power to the grid.

Aterio's review of the Edgecombe County zoning filings for the Tarboro campus, which its developer bills as a "Net Zero" data center, shows what that label actually covers: not a solar farm, but on-site natural gas and hydrogen generation paired with a solid-state graphene battery and an unproven "Carbon Sponge" meant to capture 130 percent of the plant's emissions. The behind-the-meter campus, sized around 72.6 MW of gas generation and a 300 MW / 1.2 GWh battery on a roughly 52-acre site off Anaconda Road, carried a $6.4 billion price tag by August 2025.

The design is a genuine attempt to self-power an AI data center without the grid, and to bolt a carbon-capture answer onto the gas that makes it possible. The catch is that the centerpiece of the "Net Zero" claim is a technology the developer admits no data center has ever used, the capacity figures on file swing widely, the cost quintupled in two months, and on September 8, 2025 the Tarboro Town Council rejected the permit 7-1. Energy Storage Solutions has since appealed to the Edgecombe County Superior Court.

Figure: The Tarboro Net Zero campus site plan, a roughly 13.8-acre project area on the 52-acre Anaconda Road site, pairing two data-center buildings and a chiller yard with an on-site natural gas generation yard, a BESS yard, and the 2.5-acre Tarboro electric substation. Source: Tarboro zoning agenda, August 18, 2025 (p. 105).

What "Net Zero" actually means here

There is no solar plant at Tarboro. In its Special Use Permit application, Energy Storage Solutions describes the green claim in its own words: "we will use cogeneration and a 'carbon sponge' clean energy system to capture 130 percent of the CO2 and other emissions as a 'green sequestration' system." The power underneath that sentence is natural gas (the Town's order notes the plant would also burn hydrogen). The "Net Zero" is a capture-and-credit layer on top of a gas plant: a company representative told My Tarboro Today the campus could claim a federal carbon-capture tax credit of up to $280 per ton.

The developer has been candid that the centerpiece is untested. "We are not aware of any data centers using this new technology involved with the Carbon Sponge system," a company representative told My Tarboro Today, adding that Energy Storage Solutions would "provide approximately $100 million to clean up the pollution at the campus by using this system." A $100 million bet on a first-of-its-kind capture system is the entire distance between "gas plant" and "Net Zero data center."

Two on-site plants, sizes that keep moving

The campus is two behind-the-meter plants at one address. The first is on-site power generation: the Tarboro zoning agenda lists 22 gas units of 3.3 MW each, 72.6 MW in total, and the Town's denial order describes the plant as burning both natural gas and hydrogen. The second is a solid-state graphene battery that scaled as the project moved through review, from 250 MW / 1.0 GWh in the June 16, 2025 Planning Board materials to 300 MW / 1.2 GWh by the August-to-September 2025 permit hearing.

Figure: The project-area layout: two 39,960-square-foot buildings flank the chiller yard and BESS yard, with the on-site natural gas generation yard at center and the 2.5-acre Tarboro electric substation to the southeast. Source: Tarboro zoning agenda, August 18, 2025 (p. 104).

The public record around the campus is also easy to get wrong. A 900 MW figure that appears in some coverage is not this project at all: it belongs to Energy Storage Solutions' separate, larger Kingsboro data center in unincorporated Edgecombe County, a roughly $19 billion campus that would sell power to the grid. Even this campus's own size moved as it went, the battery scaling up and the price more than quintupling between the June hearing and the September vote. The Anaconda Road "Net Zero" campus is the smaller, behind-the-meter one the town turned down.

That is exactly what a properly-researched record is for. The public filings for Tarboro shift between the June hearing and the September vote, a press account attaches another project's 900 MW to it, and even the developer's name is recorded three different ways across sources. Aterio's job is to reconcile every filing, permit, and press account for a project into one verified, source-linked record, so the capacity and status an investor or operator acts on are the ones the documents actually support, not whichever figure a single article happened to print.

Key project parameters:

• Developer: Energy Storage Solutions, LLC (the Special Use Permit applicant); a federal EIA-860M search returns no generator registered to it or to its parent, North Carolina Renewable Energy, LLC, consistent with an off-grid design. Construction is attributed to ARCO Design and Build.
• Location: a roughly 52-acre site (13.8-acre developed project area) on the south side of Anaconda Road, between McNair Road and Western Boulevard, in Tarboro, Edgecombe County, North Carolina (35.90151, -77.584274).
• On-site generation: on-site natural gas and hydrogen generation (the Town's denial order names both fuels), with 72.6 MW of gas in the town zoning filing (22 units at 3.3 MW), behind the meter; the "Carbon Sponge" capture on the gas emissions is the "Net Zero" layer.
• Storage: a solid-state graphene battery system of 300 MW / 1.2 GWh at the August 2025 hearing, up from 250 MW / 1.0 GWh in June 2025.
• Data-center load: three data centers (two 25 MW units, NetZero 1 and 2, plus a 50 MW NetZero 3 "Mobile"), about 100 MW of initial IT load, for an undisclosed "top tier" tenant.
• Cost and water: about $6.4 billion (up from $1.29 billion), roughly 500 jobs across six phases, drawing about 2 million gallons of water per day from the Town of Tarboro.

Source: Tarboro zoning agenda, ConnectCRE, and the Aterio U.S. Data Center dataset.

Figure: The "NetZero 3" site plan, rows of mobile data-center containers beside the BESS yard and the on-site generation yard, the campus's third, containerized data center. Source: Tarboro zoning agenda, August 18, 2025 (p. 96).

Filed, backed, then denied 7-1

The permit path is the clearest part of the record. Energy Storage Solutions filed its Special Use Permit application on April 10, 2025. On June 16, 2025 the Tarboro Planning Board gave the proposal unanimous backing and sent it to the Town Council. By the time the council took it up, the price had grown from the $1.29 billion described at the June Planning Board meeting to $6.4 billion, and the battery had scaled from 250 MW / 1.0 GWh to 300 MW / 1.2 GWh.

Then the local process reversed the momentum. On September 8, 2025 the Tarboro Town Council denied Special Use Permit #25-02 by a 7-1 vote. The council's order found the project would endanger public health through point-source emissions from burning gas, would injure the value of adjoining residential and industrial property, and lacked assured natural gas supply, and it found the "Carbon Sponge" a "novel device" backed by "no data or documentation." The Town denied the permit on "public testimony," even though its own planning staff and Planning Board had recommended approval, its order acknowledged the application complied with the ordinance, and the developer projected $11 million a year in new revenue for the town. Residents had also raised a constant 60-decibel hum and added traffic. Energy Storage Solutions promised an appeal and, on November 13, 2025, filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Edgecombe County Superior Court (case 25CV004521-320).

Bottom line

Tarboro is a test of how far "Net Zero" branding stretches when the generation underneath it is gas. Energy Storage Solutions built a behind-the-meter campus that skips the grid and the interconnection queue, paired 72.6 MW of gas with a 300 MW / 1.2 GWh battery, and staked its green claim on a $100 million capture system it concedes is unproven. A local council looked at the same file, saw a $6.4 billion off-grid gas plant with capacity figures that would not sit still, and voted it down 7-1.

What to watch: the Superior Court appeal (case 25CV004521-320) and whether it revives the denied project; whether Energy Storage Solutions' larger, grid-selling Kingsboro project fares better than its behind-the-meter "Net Zero" one; and whether local permitting bodies elsewhere start treating on-site gas plus carbon capture as the new interconnection fight. Knowing which of those outcomes is real, and which figure on file is the one that holds, is the reason Aterio reconciles every filing and project into one verified record, the same way we tracked the on-site gas-and-battery power stack behind xAI's Colossus 1 and how former bitcoin miners repurposed power-rich sites into AI hosting: the scarce asset is firm power, and the fight is increasingly local.

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