Texas freezes 474 GW of data-center grid requests

Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to audit every data-center project seeking a grid connection before any new hookups are approved. The order affects roughly 474 gigawatts of pending connection requests; state officials estimate about 90% of that backlog comes from data centers.

The audit will verify each project’s power sourcing, water use, cooling plans and ownership. The 474 GW figure exceeds the grid’s record peak load by more than five times. ERCOT paused its Batch Zero transmission-planning study after the order, and a PUCT survey found only 28 of 377 companies provided details when asked about their data-center plans.

Regulators will review projects across a range of development stages, from raw land claims near substations and interconnection queue positions to financed campuses already under construction. Land and queue positions lack guarantees of power delivery and will face tighter scrutiny. Projects with energized substations, signed tenant contracts or secured financing are treated as closer to deliverable load.

At the federal level, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on June 18 ordered six regional grid operators — PJM, MISO, SPP, CAISO, ISO New England and NYISO — to justify or revise rules for large-load customers like data centers. The operators have 60 days to respond on tariff changes and 30 days to explain plans for securing generation to meet expected demand.

Several public Bitcoin miners and hosting operators have multi-gigawatt AI infrastructure pipelines that are now under review. Hut 8 reported about $7.5 billion in project-level financing across two flagship sites, River Bend and Beacon Point, backing 949 MW of contracted IT capacity; Beacon Point in Texas is roughly 1 GW and financed with $4.25 billion in secured notes. River Bend is in MISO and is not subject to the Texas audit. IREN energized its 1.4 GW Sweetwater 1 site in May and said existing Childress capacity backs contracts with Microsoft and Nvidia, while noting that ERCOT’s batch review could affect timing for later phases. Cipher Digital reported about 700 MW of contracted high-performance computing capacity and roughly 2 GW of Texas pipeline still subject to the batch process.

Marathon Digital operates a separate fleet and uses behind-the-meter power strategies; its proposed 2 GW Matagorda project depends on approvals, power authorization and a tenant lease. CleanSpark has a contracted project in Georgia outside ERCOT; its Texas proposals — about 285 MW near Houston and up to 600 MW near Brazoria County — require approvals and power. Riot Platforms holds a 700 MW interconnection at Rockdale with an AMD lease starting at 25 MW and the option to expand; its Corsicana plan is earlier-stage. Core Scientific operates about 300 MW at Pecos and plans expansion to 1.5 GW if power and leases are secured.

Market forecasts and federal data show rapid growth in demand. Goldman Sachs projected U.S. data-center power demand rising from about 31 GW in 2025 to 41 GW in 2026 and 66 GW in 2027. The Energy Information Administration reported U.S. electricity demand grew about 1.7% per year from 2020 to 2025, compared with 0.1% per year in the previous 15 years.

Regulators have asked grid operators to address co-location and behind-the-meter generation, practices some miners use to manage load and participate in power markets. The audits are intended to identify which proposed gigawatts have firm power and tenant commitments and which remain speculative.