The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has said it intends to complete Governor Greg Abbott’s audit of all data centers seeking a grid connection by December.. 04 Aug 2026. Abbott directed ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) to undertake a comprehensive audit of all data center projects currently advancing through ERCOT’s interconnection process early last month..
As part of the audit, the PUCT and ERCOT were instructed to gather information detailing the extent to which data centers are paying their own way, the extent to which they are providing their own power or relying on the grid, the extent to which they are bringing their own water supplies and/or reusing water rather than relying on local communities, whether they are using measures to reduce impacts on neighboring property owners and communities, and finally information detailing the ownership and controlling interests in the project.. The grid operator said that it intends to complete the audit of the approximately 300 planned data centers seeking a grid connection by December 10, 2026.
It added that it will be a necessary step for its Batch Zero study process to continue and for grid interconnections of the large loads to resume.. According to Chad Seely, the grid operator’s senior vice president of regulatory policy, general counsel, and chief compliance officer at ERCOT, the process will include a comprehensive report on the verification and audit process delivered to the PUCT a week before its open meeting that month..
“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.. Texas is fast becoming a new hotspot for data center development.
At present, ERCOT is considering more than 474GW of connection requests, which is more than five times the state’s record peak electricity demand. Of that capacity, approximately 90 percent is attributed to data center load.. Due to the audit, reports suggest that up to 20 percent of the US’ entire data center pipeline could be delayed.
The financial impact of Governor Abbott’s audit, which would impact almost 49.8GW of projects seeking a grid connection, could be upwards of $8 billion by the first quarter of 2027. Should the pause extend further, the risk would become more extreme.. More in Grid Level.
27 Mar 2026. More in North America. 26 Aug 2026.
20 May 2026
