DATA CENTRE STRATEGY
T
exas has spent more than a decade promoting itself to the digital infrastructure sector on speed, land and available power. In early August, the state attached a condition to that proposition.
Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas, directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas( PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas( ERCOT) to carry out a verification and audit of every data centre advancing through ERCOT’ s interconnection process.
The audit must be completed before any project moves forward, and any development that fails to meet the requirements set by the two bodies will be denied a connection to the Texas grid.
The volume sitting in the queue explains the timing. ERCOT is considering more than 474GW of requests to connect – over five times the record peak electricity demand on its system – and roughly 90 % of those new power requests come from data centres. Load growth of that order carries consequences for grid reliability that the interconnection process was never built to absorb.
“ Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life,” Greg says.“ Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT, and by state law, must be denied connection to the Texas grid. Simply put, Texans must come first.”
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