DATA CENTRE STRATEGY
WHY THE ERCOT INTERCONNECTION QUEUE CHANGED THE CONVERSATION
The August directive builds on an earlier instruction issued on 10 June, converting stated expectations into an evidence-gathering exercise. The PUCT and ERCOT have been told to obtain five categories of information from every project in the queue, each mapping to a question the industry has answered on its own terms until now.
The first covers the extent to which a data centre is paying its own way, including all tax incentives, grants, abatements or other public financial assistance received or expected.
The second covers power, requiring projected annual and peak electricity consumption alongside any effort to construct or procure on-site generation, the type of generation involved, or other measures that reduce demand on the ERCOT grid.
The third concerns water, asking whether operators are bringing and reusing their own supply rather than drawing on volumes needed by local communities, and requiring projected consumption, anticipated sources of supply and the cooling technology to be used, whether air-cooled, closed-loop or another water-efficient system.
The fourth addresses impacts on neighbouring property owners, from noise mitigation and light controls to setbacks, traffic improvements and emergency response coordination, with the directive acknowledging that each community is unique.
The fifth asks for the ownership and controlling interests behind each project.
That last requirement carries weight beyond its brevity. A queue holding 474GW of requests contains a good deal of position-taking, and establishing who stands behind each application gives ERCOT a means of separating funded developments from held options.
82 September 2026