TEXAS SCORECARD by Sydnie Henry April 9, 2026
Citizens are concerned with the energy-hungry constructions. Texas lawmakers are questioning whether an explosion of data centers will overwhelm the state’s power grid—and whether Texas families will be the ones left paying the bill.
At a House State Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday, ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas and Public Utility Commission of Texas Chairman Thomas Gleeson faced questions over massive new electric loads.
Vegas told lawmakers the scale of planned large loads has changed almost beyond recognition in just a few years. ERCOT is now tracking “over 410,000 megawatts” of large‑load interconnection requests—“a huge, huge change since the last time we talked about the data centers,” he said—with “over 80 percent” of that queue made up of data centers.
Most of those projects are trying to energize in just the next few years, with the “lion’s share” targeting 2027 and 2028, which Vegas warned is “really where the challenge of the infrastructure window is because, as you know, it takes time to develop power plants … [and] transmission lines and build those.”
Upon questioning, Vegas explained that ERCOT’s traditional one‑off study process for large loads has broken down under the flood of hyperscale data center projects. Multiple big projects in the same area were changing grid conditions mid‑stream, forcing ERCOT to “go back and restudy” and, in some cases, change transmission requirements after developers had already started investing.
To fix that, Vegas said ERCOT plans to move to an annual “batch” process that takes “all the projects at a point in time” and studies them together, then allocates specific amounts of transmission capacity out through 2030 and, for projects that meet a high bar of leases, equipment orders, and “pretty significant financial security,” “hold that capacity for them.”
Lawmakers pressed Vegas on what these new loads mean for reliability, especially during emergencies.
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/state/can-the-grid-handle-the-explosion-of-data-centers/
