4AUG

Texas queue swells to 438 GW

3 min read

10:53UTC

Texas approved its first formal large-load study process on 18 June, even as ERCOT's connection queue climbed to 438 GW, about 90% of it data centres. The plan to clear it is not due until autumn 2027.

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Key takeaway

ERCOT's queue has nearly doubled to 438 GW while the plan to clear it runs to autumn 2027.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas approved the state's first formal Batch Zero large-load study process on 18 June, the cohort method ERCOT will use to work through its connection requests ¹. ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs about 90% of the state grid, reported its large-load queue at 438 GW (gigawatts), roughly 90% of it data centres.

The queue climbed from 410 GW in April in about six weeks, and Texas first tried to clear it when it stood at 225 GW . It has nearly doubled since. ERCOT's final transmission plan is not due until autumn 2027, with the next application round, Batch 1, opening in summer 2027.

Intake runs at tens of gigawatts a quarter while the study meant to clear it takes years, so the backlog grows faster than any single cohort can be processed. A connection cleared through Batch Zero still cannot switch on without the transformers to serve it, and those are running years behind for new grid links. A transformer ordered today arrives after both the FERC show-cause responses and the Batch Zero plan are already on the table.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) is the company that operates the electricity grid for about 90% of Texas. When a company wants to connect a new power user, like a data centre, to the Texas grid, it has to apply for a connection and join a queue. ERCOT then studies whether the local grid can handle the extra load without causing problems for existing customers. That queue has now reached 438 GW, meaning companies have applied to connect 438 GW of new electricity demand, roughly five times Texas's actual peak electricity use of about 85 GW. About 90% of those applications are from data centres. On 18 June, Texas approved the first formal batch process to work through the queue, called Batch Zero. But the final plan is not due until autumn 2027, and the next round of applications does not open until summer 2027, meaning new data centres approved through this process will not have confirmed grid connections for at least two more years.

What could happen next?

Consequence
ERCOT's Batch Zero timeline locks the Texas data-centre grid-connection question to 2027-28, a 12-18 month gap that will be filled by BTM generation deals like Project Kilby rather than utility connections.
Risk
If queue growth continues at the 28 GW per two-month pace observed between April and June 2026, the queue will exceed 600 GW before Batch Zero's autumn 2027 plan is delivered, making any single batch process insufficient.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: California's interconnection queue managed by CAISO hit 400 GW by 2023, driven by solar and storage applications. CAISO adopted a cluster study approach (effectively a Batch process) in 2022 under FERC Order 2023, clearing roughly 150 GW of applications through deposit requirements and viability screens over two years. Texas is attempting the same mechanism three years later at a similar headline queue volume.

Counter-parallel: PJM's interconnection reform process, launched in 2022 after its queue exceeded 200 GW, took two years to implement a deposit-backed cluster process and still had not cleared the backlog by mid-2026. The counter-lesson from PJM is that clearing the existing queue does not prevent new applications from arriving faster than studies complete.

At 438 GW of queued applications, ERCOT's transmission upgrade costs to serve even a fraction of that load run into hundreds of billions of dollars. Texas's legislature has authorised $7.2bn in transmission bonds since 2023, a figure that covers roughly 20-30 GW of new large-load connections at an estimated $30-40 per kW transmission upgrade cost.

Operators that want certainty before autumn 2027 are building captive BTM generation rather than waiting for grid confirmation. Project Kilby targets first power in 2028, precisely when the Batch Zero transmission plan will be finalised. Owning the generator converts a grid-plan dependency into an energy-procurement decision.

Consensus view: Wood Mackenzie's North American power markets team has tracked ERCOT's queue growth and noted that Batch Zero's study process will disqualify a significant portion of applicants at the screening stage, since ERCOT requires firm financial deposits and demonstrated site control that speculative queue positions lack.

The real queue, after deposit-backed positions are separated from speculative placeholders, is estimated by Wood Mackenzie to be 30-40% of the headline 438 GW figure.

Counter-view: Rystad Energy's upstream power analysts have argued that the queue's speculative component does not reduce the transmission-planning burden, because ERCOT must model each application to determine which ones to clear. At 438 GW, the study volume itself is the bottleneck: ERCOT's transmission planning staff cannot run contingency studies for that many applications concurrently, making the autumn 2027 final-plan deadline optimistic regardless of deposit attrition.

Key tension: Whether ERCOT's Batch Zero deposit requirement will clear the queue to a manageable volume before the autumn 2027 transmission plan, or whether the queue will continue to grow faster than studies can clear it, as it has done since Texas first tried to clear it at 225 GW .

Sources:Utility Dive

Mentions:Oregon Public Utility Commission →Texas →California →Rystad Energy →Wood Mackenzie →CAISO →FERC →PJM Interconnection →Batch Zero →large-load interconnection queue →ERCOT →Public Utility Commission of Texas →

First Reported In

Update #8 · Data centres build their own power plants

Utility Dive· 28 Jun 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Texas grid queue hits 410 GW

ERCOT's queue grew from 410 GW in April to 438 GW by June, the 28 GW increase that triggered the Batch Zero approval

Occurred 9 Apr 2026

Read story →

ERCOT large-load queue passes 225 GW

Texas first tried to clear this queue when it stood at 225 GW; it has nearly doubled since

Occurred 1 Apr 2026

Read story →

This Event

Texas queue swells to 438 GW

Texas is trying to process a connection queue that grows by tens of gigawatts a quarter with a study that takes years, so the backlog widens faster than any cohort can clear.

Different Perspectives

Government of Odisha

Odisha signed a $1.5bn agreement with HCLTech and Sarvam AI on 24 July for a sovereign AI data centre in Bhubaneswar, targeting 2028 operations. While regulators elsewhere price developers out of the queue, Odisha is bidding state financial assistance to bring capacity in, betting the AI infrastructure boom is worth courting rather than rationing.

Switch Datacenters and Uithoorn

The developer, the municipality, Liander and dozens of greenhouse growers signed a waste-heat agreement letting a 60 MVA facility proceed under a provincial rule that bans sites above 5 MVA. The public-interest exception argues the site relieves rather than adds to grid congestion, working around a standing ban from inside rather than waiting for it to change.

Iskandar Puteri residents

Residents protested in February over falling water pressure they attribute to ZDATA's 300 MW construction; ZDATA disputes causation and has not yet resolved the dispute with its wastewater-only pivot. The complaint sits unadjudicated while the operator advertises compliance to state authorities the residents cannot address directly.

Microsoft

DC Byte reports Microsoft looking to the Nordics for new capacity while Dublin's regional share falls to 15 per cent, though this is a market-intelligence inference rather than a company statement. Microsoft keeps its existing Dublin cloud region, which is costly to relocate, while directing new investment where power is cheaper and the queue is shorter.

ISO New England

ISO-NE proposed excluding new large loads from its Installed Capacity Requirement entirely, forcing data centres to bring their own generation or accept curtailment, even though New England's demand has been flat or falling for a decade. The reform is pre-emptive, written before the region has felt the strain PJM and MISO already report.

Ofgem

Ofgem opened its Data Centre Commitment Fee consultation on 29 July, arguing that free options on grid capacity let developers bank places on ten sites and abandon nine, crowding out projects that would build. It expects the deposit to filter the queue before the rule even takes final form.