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Texas is testing how much data center demand is real. Texas's AI infrastructure problem is no longer simply finding enough electricity. The state first has to determine which of the extraordinary amounts being requested actually represent projects capable of being built. Gov. Greg Abbott ordered Texas grid operator ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission of Texas to audit data centers seeking connections before allowing them to advance through the interconnection process. As of August 3, ERCOT was considering more than 474 GW of large-load requests, approximately 90% of which came from data centers, according to the governor's office. That theoretical queue is more than five times Texas's record electricity demand with ERCOT's all-time peak reaching 91.13 GW on July 22. Sponsored · Selkirk Copper Mines A recent Reuters review found more than 700 GW of large-load electricity requests across portions of the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and South, with most tied to data centers. Texas requests alone had risen from roughly 48 GW in 2023 to more than 474 GW. The figures are not forecasts that every project will be built. Utilities count prospective customers differently, and requests can include projects that lack firm financing, duplicate proposals seeking capacity from multiple providers, or developments that have not reached contractual commitments. Money starts shrinking the queue. Evidence from other markets shows how dramatically proposed demand can change once developers have to put capital behind their requests. For instance, American Electric Power's AEP Ohio, owned by American Electric Power, had received more than 30 GW of proposed data-center demand before Ohio approved a special data-center tariff. Sponsored · Altamira Gold Corp. When developers were required to pay for formal engineering studies, only 13.02 GW proceeded. And after AEP Ohio required service agreements, collateral, and other financial commitments, just 5.64 GW of that group signed binding contracts. AEP Ohio said the process was designed specifically to avoid building an oversized system around inaccurate demand estimates and passing the resulting costs to other customers. Exelon has seen a similar reset. Its estimate of "high probability" data-center demand fell nearly 40% from 18 GW at the end of 2025 to approximately 11 GW after its utilities began requiring transmission security agreements and collateral. About 4 GW of that demand is backed by agreements carrying roughly $1.00 billion in collateral, according to an Exelon filing. The company said its $41 billion capital program through 2029 was unchanged because speculative projects had not been incorporated into the plan. Texas moves the verification test up front. ERCOT had already created a new "Batch Zero" system to study large users of at least 75 MW collectively rather than project by project. In June, ERCOT said it was tracking more than 438 GW of large-load requests, with almost 89% coming from data centers. Abbott's August order moved verification ahead of that process. ERCOT subsequently delayed Batch Zero classifications while the audit is conducted. Projects must now provide additional information including ownership and controlling interests, electricity requirements, on-site generation plans, public incentives, water consumption, cooling technology, and community impacts. The cost issue had already reached the governor's office before the pause. In June, Abbott directed the PUCT to require data centers to fully fund electric infrastructure needed to serve their operations and said regulators should prevent development risks and costs from being shifted onto Texans. He also pledged to pursue legislation requiring data centers to contribute electricity capacity rather than only adding demand. Monitoring Analytics, the independent market monitor for PJM, calculated that existing and forecast data-center demand increased capacity-market costs by $29.40 billion across PJM's last four capacity auctions, according to Reuters. Texas's audit therefore addresses a different constraint in the AI infrastructure race. Even before utilities determine how to supply hundreds of gigawatts of prospective demand, regulators are demanding stronger evidence that the customers asking for that electricity will actually show up. Information for this briefing was found via the sources and the companies mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to this organization. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.

ERCOT aims to complete Texas governor's data center audit by December. The pause on new data center interconnections could impact the Electric Reliability Council of Texas' upcoming long-term load forecast and reliability assessment, officials said Thursday. Published Aug. 21, 2026 Dive brief: * The Electric Reliability Council of Texas intends to audit hundreds of data center proposals by Dec. 10, grid officials said Thursday, a necessary step for its Batch Zero study process to continue and for grid interconnections of the large loads to resume. * On Aug. 3, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, R, called for a moratorium on new data center interconnections until questions around their use of energy, water and public funds could be answered. * The delay to the first set of projects to navigate the state's new large load interconnection process may push back other ERCOT planning efforts, including the grid operator's long-term load forecast and reliability assessment, officials said at the Public Utility Commission of Texas open meeting. Dive insight: There are about 300 data centers 75 MW or larger navigating the Batch Zero process, and ERCOT will also perform a community impact review on data centers and crypto facilities of 25 MW and above, to comply with Abbott's directive, officials said. ERCOT interconnection queue requests total about 474 GW, and approximately 90% are data centers, according to Abbott's letter to the grid operator. However, a substantial portion of that may be speculative or duplicative, experts say, as the queue is more than five times ERCOT's record peak electricity demand. ERCOT is in the process of developing a request for information template that will go to all the large loads that are provisionally qualified in Batch Zero, Chad Seely, the grid operator's senior vice president of regulatory policy, and its general counsel and chief compliance officer, said at the open meeting. "We expect to start sending those out as early as the end of the month and into the first part of September, and then as we move forward into October and November, there may be additional rounds of RFIs," Seely said. "Our goal is to head toward a December 10 filing," Seely said, including a comprehensive report on the verification and audit process delivered to the PUCT a week before its open meeting that month. The PUCT approved good cause exceptions for ERCOT to an Aug. 7, 2026, Batch Zero classification deadline that Abbott's moratorium interrupted. The grid operator has not yet requested regulators adjust a deadline to deliver the Batch Zero interconnection study results "because ERCOT does not yet know how the delay will impact the study timeline," according to a presentation the grid operator filed with the commission. "We will not have the study done by April 9, 2027. I think what we're saying is, we're still working on what that new timeline might be," Seely said. The Texas legislative session "could delay things further," Jefferies equity analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith said in a research note today. Seely also said that ERCOT, this week, sent out RFIs to utilities for an update on medium-sized loads. "We have an April snapshot that has about 157 medium data center and crypto facilities, representing almost 8,800 MW, that is expected to come on the grid at some point," he said. "We've asked those utilities to update that information so we have a real time baseline as we start to move forward with the community impact RFI." Seely also noted that ERCOT has 17 large loads, mostly data centers, that have already gone through a stability assessment and are scheduled to come online later this year. The projects would have total peak demand of about 6.6 GW, ramping up over about five years. "Of course, we have not approved those energization requests... these loads would still have to go through some form of the verification and audit process, and they will get the community impact [RFI] as well, as we move forward here over the next several weeks," Seely said. "But they are the furthest along in the process where they've made it through all the ERCOT gates, except for that last gate, which is the approval to energize."

Texas will audit up to 300 projects, mostly data centers, after Gov. Greg Abbott's order. By: Paul Cobler The audit and verification of data centers ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott will involve about 250 to 300 projects, most of which are data centers, state grid operator officials told the Public Utility Commission on Friday. The officials' testimony also highlighted just how data significant the buildout is: The 200 gigawatt of future demand accounted for by the projects that will be audited is more than twice the ERCOT grid's peak demand record set last month. It will take the Electric Reliability Council of Texas "several months" to audit the projects, which must be completed before any data center can be approved for connection to the state grid, according to Abbott's Aug. 3 directive to ERCOT and the PUCT. ERCOT had already planned on assessing large load projects seeking to connect to the grid as a part of a process already underway, but Abbott's audit order moves up the checks to first priority and adds some more requirements, officials said. "With the governor's letter, what we're really doing is moving that verification process now to the front of the line before we begin the interconnection study process," said Chad Seely, general counsel and senior vice president of regulatory policy for ERCOT. Friday's emergency meeting of the PUCT was the first public discussion the state regulator and state grid operator have had since Abbott ordered the pause on data center approvals amid public backlash to the accelerating buildout of the facilities statewide. The meeting clarified that the audit is limited to projects under consideration in ERCOT's "Batch Zero" study, or the process the grid operator has been undertaking since the start of the year. The study aims to organize its grid approval process as more than 1,800 individual projects - 90% of which are data centers - overwhelmed the queue in recent years. Projects were previously studied and approved on an individual basis, but the crush of requests for energization has forced ERCOT to introduce a new process of studying and approving the projects in batches. The work involved in Abbott's audit directive was already planned under the Batch Zero study - it just adds a few more standards data center projects have to meet, ERCOT officials said. Spot checks were going to be conducted on the 250 to 300 projects eligible in the first batch of projects moving through the queue, and ERCOT is now planning to simply conduct those checks now before moving ahead with the rest of the study. "The goal of the verification audit is to provide more certainty and confidence in the Batch Zero process," said Thomas Gleeson, chair of the PUCT. While Abbott's order was limited to data centers in the queue, a "handful" of the projects that will be audited are traditional large-load energy users, like a factory, ERCOT officials said. ERCOT, last week, was supposed to notify developers of projects that are being included in the first batch study, but that notification was put on hold at the request of ERCOT following Abbott's Aug. 3 letter. Seely said ERCOT is still aiming to complete its study of the first batch of projects by its original deadline of April. Both ERCOT and representatives of data center companies have stated many of the more than 1,800 projects in the queue, totaling more than 474 gw of potential demand, are unlikely to come to fruition because those projects lack elements such as financing and companies that have agreed to lease server space from the data center, if constructed. However, the size of the queue has prevented ERCOT from issuing demand forecasts for the grid, making it unclear just how many will actually be built and energized in the coming years. Experts call the Batch Zero study a first-of-its-kind effort by a U.S. grid operator to formalize an approval process better equipped to address data centers' energy demands. Since Abbott ordered the audit, at least 43 companies constructing data centers have issued public comments in support of Abbott's approach. Abbott, in his own news release, has touted each of the companies' announcements, saying his directives will address public concern around the facilities. "I established clear guardrails to ensure data centers protect our electric grid, conserve our water, respect our neighborhoods, and pay their own way," Abbott wrote in a statement accompanying the latest group of companies to sign off on the approach, issued shortly before the PUCT meeting began Friday. "They must not pass costs on to Texas families or interfere with their quality of life." Abbott's Aug. 3 letter said the audit should ensure data center developers provide information on tax breaks they will receive; power use and generation; water use and cooling operations; efforts to reduce impacts on local communities; and ownership of the facility. Any projects that fail Abbott's ordered "comprehensive verification and audit" should be denied connection to the grid, the governor said. Abbott in June also directed the PUCT to ensure data center interconnections to the grid will result in reduced electricity rates for residential customers and that data centers pay the cost of any new transmission infrastructure needed to serve them. Closely tied to the data center controversy is ERCOT's plan to build massive 765 kilovolt transmission lines across much of the state, aimed at relieving growing transmission congestion caused by growing energy demand. Residents living along the lines' proposed routes, three of which extend hundreds of miles from the eastern half of the state to the Permian Basin, have been frustrated by the PUCT's approval process for the lines, arguing it is too short for landowners to participate in the process. Following a Senate interim committee hearing in late July that featured hours of testimony by residents opposed to the transmission lines, several legislators and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called on the PUCT to deny any certificate of convenience and necessity application, or CCN, by transmission companies to build the 765 kv lines until the Legislature can meet to revise its approval process. A denial of the CCN would effectively kill the project, although the companies could refile their application to start the process anew. "The only remedy to this is denial of all applications of CCN, thus allowing the Legislature, the peoples' representatives, to take up this issue in the next legislative session," state Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, told the commissioners Friday. Officials from ERCOT testified during the July committee hearing that without the transmission lines, the Permian Basin could face rolling blackouts by next summer. On Friday, commissioners discussed the latest developments in the transmission line buildout but made no formal decision about any individual application. More than 20 landowners living near the proposed routes attended the meeting to testify in opposition to the lines.