Texas Freezes Data Center Grid Connections Over Unreliable Demand Data

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on August 3 ordered the Public Utility Commission of Texas and ERCOT to halt new grid connection approvals for data centers pending a full audit of all pending requests. ERCOT's interconnection queue holds 474 gigawatts of requested capacity — more than five times the state's all-time peak demand of roughly 91 gigawatts, with about 90 percent attributed to data centers. The core issue is not power shortage but a flawed planning system that cannot distinguish genuine, committed projects from speculative placeholder reservations filed to secure queue positions. The freeze has suspended ERCOT's Batch Zero interconnection study, and neither agency has announced a timeline for completing the audit or resuming approvals. BloombergNEF estimates approximately 49.8 gigawatts of projects face delays, representing around 20 percent of the entire US data center development pipeline.
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