The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid operator running most of the Texas electricity market, closed Batch Zero interconnection submissions on 24 July, with classification results due by 7 August 1. Batch Zero is the first tranche under the large-load interconnection process created after Texas legislated on data-centre connections, and classification sorts the applications by how far advanced each project actually is.
ERCOT is the outlier among the six operators that filed generation-adequacy reports this fortnight. It sits outside FERC's jurisdiction, being a grid deliberately kept inside one state's borders, and it has courted large loads rather than rationed them. Where Ofgem proposes a deposit to make speculation expensive, Texas is instead going to publish who is serious.
The Texas Public Utility Commission approved this study process in June , and the classification results are its first output. Nobody believes the whole Texas queue will be built. The results due on 7 August produce the first audited estimate of how much of it might be, in a market that charges nothing to deter a speculative applicant. Whatever share survives classification becomes the reference point every other jurisdiction's queue estimate gets measured against.
