Project Flex

The project

Electrical demand

No capacity figure on the record

Developer

Verrus, operated by Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners

Serving utility

DTE Electric

Site size

172 acres

Building area

1,800,000 sq ft

Grid, generation or storage

The site plan includes a utility substation.

Also on the record

The developer has offered a $10 million community benefits package contingent on final approval.

Last checked September 7, 2026. Every field above has been confirmed against the sources listed.

What has happened

Every entry carries the source it came from. Where the record gives no date, the entry says so rather than being placed by guesswork.

1. September 8, 2025The Planning Commission granted conditional site plan approval for six buildings totalling 1.8 million sq ft on 172 acres, with final approval conditioned on an independent review of the sound study and an energy audit. WXYZ Detroit
2. March 2026The township enacted a 180-day moratorium on data centers and other developments of 100,000 sq ft or more. WXYZ Detroit
3. August 13, 2026Kimley-Horn filed the fifth submission of the final site plan on the developer's behalf, revised to address the township consultants' comments on the third submission. Kimley-Horn of Michigan, filed with Charter Township of Lyon

On the record, but undated

No source consulted gives a date for these, so they are not placed in the sequence above.

1. Date not on the recordA fourth application addressing noise, lighting and drainage was submitted and withdrawn the following day, the developer saying it would be resubmitted that week. WXYZ Detroit

Where the sources disagree

No megawatt figure has been disclosed by the developer or the township. Third-party trackers estimate 100 MW or more; that figure is not repeated here because nobody with the numbers has stated it. Separately, a December 2025 headline reported a data center “approved in Lyon Township”, while the township and later reporting both describe final approval as still outstanding — the September 2025 vote was conditional. Resolve against the Planning Commission minutes. Third, reporting anticipated a final site plan review at a Planning Commission meeting on 24 August 2026. That meeting is not in the township’s record. Rechecked on 7 September 2026: none of the Planning Commission’s three document series holds anything for that date — the latest agenda is still 10 August 2026, the latest minutes still 27 July 2026, and the 2026 packet folders run 10 August, then 14 September, with no 24 August between them. The Board of Trustees packets skip it too, running 5 August then 8 September. Proposed minutes are due within 8 business days under the Open Meetings Act, which for a 24 August meeting fell on 3 September, so this is no longer a posting lag and the date is dropped rather than carried as overdue. What the record still does not give is the reason: whether the review was never scheduled, or was scheduled and then adjourned without a public meeting, is not something the document center shows. The next Planning Commission packet is 14 September 2026. No agenda for it has been posted, so whether Project Flex is on it is unknown and is not claimed here.

Published rather than resolved. Picking a favourite number and printing it alone is how a tracker becomes an opinion.

What DTE Electric customers pay, before and now

Those figures are DTE Electric’s own EIA-861 filings and they cover the whole territory. This page does not attribute any part of that change to Project Flex. It could not honestly: the change spans years in which this project did not exist, rates move for generation costs, storm recovery, tree trimming and approved return on equity all at once, and the large-load terms the Commission has approved are written specifically to keep these costs off other customers’ bills. Whether they succeed is an open question in front of the Commission, not a settled fact this site can assert.

What actually did change DTE Electric rates, case by case →

The terms a large load takes service under here

DTE Electric operates under U-21990, approved December 18, 2025. Approved special contracts for electric service to the Saline Township data center, with conditions — a contract-by-contract approval rather than a general tariff.

Contracted demand

Roughly 1,383 MW.

Contract length

A power supply agreement of roughly 19 years, extendable by the customer for a further 20, plus a separate 15-year energy storage agreement.

Conditions imposed

Cost allocation and rate design proposals ensuring future large-load interconnection customers pay their own interconnection costs, plus an administrative fee for further large loads.

The Attorney General's motion to reopen and her separate petition for rehearing were both denied on 27 March 2026. On 17 April 2026 she filed a claim of appeal in the Michigan Court of Appeals, seeking to invalidate the approval as an unlawful ex parte order and to remand the matter for a contested case hearing. The proceeding is not closed.

• Michigan Public Service Commission: MPSC approves DTE Electric energy contracts for data center with conditions to strengthen protections for other customers
• Michigan Department of Attorney General: Attorney General’s Efforts to Review DTE Data Center Contracts Rejected Again At MPSC
• Michigan Department of Attorney General: AG Nessel Files Appeal of MPSC Approval of DTE’s Saline Data Center Contracts

Sources

Everything above traces to one of these. Local agendas and FAQ pages get replaced in place rather than archived, so each carries the date it was read.

1. [1] Lyon Township ‘may be revisiting’ data center site plan: residents pack meeting — Planet Detroit, read August 21, 2026
2. [2] Press release — Project Flex data center proposal — Charter Township of Lyon (primary document), read August 21, 2026
3. [3] Project Flex data center eyes final Lyon Township approval amid pushback from nearby residents — WXYZ Detroit, read August 21, 2026
4. [4] Lyon Township data center project: latest updates — Blackridge Research, read August 21, 2026
5. [5] Project Flex — 5th Submission of the Final Site Plan, cover letter dated 13 August 2026. In the township document center; search “Project Flex”. — Kimley-Horn of Michigan, filed with Charter Township of Lyon (primary document), read September 7, 2026
6. [6] Planning Commission agendas, minutes and meeting packets, and Board of Trustees packets. Latest Planning Commission agenda 10 August 2026; latest minutes 27 July 2026; 2026 packet folders run … August 10, September 14, with no 24 August 2026 in any of the three series. — Charter Township of Lyon (primary document), read September 7, 2026

Watch the docket this project runs through

Large-load contracts, tariff changes and the cases contesting them all arrive as DTE Electric filings. Alerts go out when one is filed and when a comment deadline is set — which is the only window in which a comment counts for anything.