Data Center Site Selection in Maryland

Maryland’s case is proximity. The state sits next to the Northern Virginia data center cluster, and its main campus at Adamstown is about 25 miles due north of Ashburn.¹ Developers squeezed by land, power and entitlement limits in Loudoun and Prince William counties have looked across the Potomac for the same fiber reach and labor pool. Our Northern Virginia market guide and Virginia site selection guide cover the other side of the river.

Power is the counterweight. Maryland is a net importer: in 2024 in-state generation was about 35.4 million MWh against retail sales of about 59 million MWh, a gap of roughly 40%.⁴ In 2023 natural gas overtook nuclear as the largest source of in-state generation for the first time.⁹ A state that already buys much of its power from the rest of PJM has little slack for gigawatt loads, which is why the Legislature has moved quickly on large-load rules and new generation.

Almost all large-scale data center activity in Maryland runs through one site. In a joint venture with TPG Real Estate Partners, Quantum Loophole bought the 2,100-acre former Eastalco Aluminum smelter in Adamstown from an Alcoa subsidiary in a transaction valued at $100 million.¹ The developer planned a 1 GW campus built from data center modules of 30–120 MW, with infrastructure for natural gas, energy storage and hydrogen.⁵ The campus is now known as Quantum Frederick.¹⁰

A former industrial site of this kind is the textbook powered land play: a large, flat, already-disturbed parcel with heavy electrical history, outside residential neighborhoods. It also brings legacy environmental questions, which is why a Phase I ESA and any state cleanup records belong early in diligence on similar sites.

Aligned Data Centers bought land on the campus as an early tenant.¹¹ Its Maryland campus is listed at 75 acres, served by FirstEnergy’s Potomac Edison, with construction starting in 2025.¹² In 2025 the Maryland Department of the Environment approved an application for 172 diesel backup generators for Aligned at Quantum Frederick, a reminder that air permits for backup generators scale with the campus.¹⁰

Frederick County chose to concentrate data centers rather than ban or scatter them. In December 2025 the County Council passed a map for a Critical Digital Infrastructure overlay zone of about 2,600 acres, designed to keep the industry in one location north of Adamstown on and around the former Eastalco site and to prevent sprawl.² The council chose the larger map over a planning commission version about 1,000 acres smaller, and many residents wanted the zone limited to the existing campus.² Our guide to data center zoning ordinances and overlay districts explains how these tools work.

Opponents then gathered more than 22,000 signatures to put the overlay ordinance to a referendum.⁶ The courts ruled that the ordinance adopting the overlay map was not a law subject to referendum under the county charter, and the Supreme Court of Maryland agreed with the circuit court.⁶ In late July 2026 the county executive asked for a pause on a data center land use vote, so the local rules are still being worked out.¹³

For a buyer, the practical point is that a Frederick County parcel outside the overlay is very unlikely to be a data center site under current policy, and a parcel inside it still faces site plan, utility and permit scrutiny from an engaged public. See moratoriums and local restrictions for how to screen for this.

Maryland’s major utilities, including Potomac Edison in Frederick County and western Maryland and BGE in the Baltimore region, all operate in PJM. That means a large load faces two layers: the utility’s rate schedule and interconnection process before the Maryland Public Service Commission, and PJM’s transmission planning and capacity market. See PJM site selection and PJM capacity prices.

The Next Generation Energy Act of 2025 (Chapters 625 and 626) requires each electric utility to adopt a specific rate schedule, approved by the PSC, for a large load customer: a commercial or industrial customer with an aggregate monthly demand of at least 100 MW and a load factor above 80%.³ The schedule must:

• Make the customer cover the just and reasonable costs of transmission or distribution buildout needed to interconnect or serve it.³
• Protect residential customers from the financial risks of large loads.³
• Keep other customers from unreasonably subsidizing large-load costs.³

Reporting on the act says utilities have until January 1, 2027 to file these schedules.¹⁴ A 2026 bill, House Bill 1082, proposed extending the large-load definition to every data center regardless of size or load factor, and removing data centers from an exemption for existing customers that expand by no more than 25 MW.³ Confirm the final rules with the utility before modeling a project; our guide to large-load tariffs and electric service agreements covers the usual terms.

The act also set up a procurement of new dispatchable generation, defined as units with an effective load carrying capability of at least 65% that emit less than coal or oil plants, with an expedited path under which the PSC decides on a certificate of public convenience and necessity within 295 days.¹⁵ The PSC sought generation proposals under the act in 2025.¹⁶ That new supply is aimed at reliability for the whole state, not at any single data center.

Maryland exempts qualified data centers from state sales and use tax on qualified data center personal property.⁷ According to the Department of Commerce, within three years of applying a business must:

Tier 1 areas are Baltimore City, Allegany, Caroline, Dorchester, Garrett, Kent, Somerset, Washington, Wicomico and Worcester counties, plus Opportunity Zones in any county.⁷ Frederick County is not on that list, so a Quantum Frederick project uses the $5 million threshold unless it sits in an Opportunity Zone. Jobs must be net new to Maryland and filled for 12 months, and the business applies to Commerce first.⁷

The exemption is under pressure. House Bill 560 of 2026 proposed repealing it, along with local governments’ authority to reduce the assessment of data center personal property, effective July 1, 2026; the fiscal note expected a potentially significant increase in state revenue.⁸ Legislative listings we found did not show it advancing past committee, but confirm the current law with Commerce or a tax adviser before relying on the exemption. See sales tax exemptions by state and tax incentives vs. power costs.

1. 01Confirm the county’s rules first; in Frederick County, check whether the parcel is inside the overlay.²
2. 02Identify the utility (Potomac Edison, BGE or another) and request an indicative capacity and timing answer at your peak MW and ramp.
3. 03If the load is 100 MW or more with a high load factor, model the large-load rate schedule and its cost-recovery terms.³
4. 04Plan air permitting for backup generators early, especially at campus scale.¹⁰
5. 05Test the sales tax exemption against the Tier 1 and job thresholds, and confirm it is still in force.⁷⁸
6. 06Check environmental history on former industrial land and floodplain near the Potomac and Monocacy rivers.

The site due diligence checklist and our methodology cover the general items. If you hold or are evaluating land in Maryland, you can get a site reviewed.