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 August1. 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.
