Case study · Hypothetical
A detailed walkthrough of how Cliffcenter ships a 420 MW Texas data center through ERCOT interconnection, four incentive programs, and a local community ordinance fight — end to end, in software. This is a hypothetical customer with realistic numbers, pieced together from engagements we run.
The workspace
Drop a load profile, a candidate POI shortlist, and a target COD. The first artifact — a queue risk memo — is in your inbox within the hour.
Active interconnection
5 projects · 3 ISOs · 3,325 MW
90 days, step by step
This is not a pitch deck narrative. Every step below is an artifact our customers can produce from their Cliffcenter workspace on the day we quote.
Customer drops the project into the Queue Intelligence workspace: 420 MW, Q1 2028 COD, three candidate POIs in Oncor territory. Our engine normalizes the load profile against the ERCOT base case and generates the initial queue risk memo within an hour.
Cliffcenter's SB 6 eligibility engine runs the project against the PUCT 58481 draft rule. The result: the customer qualifies for the ERCOT Batch Study framework at two of three POIs, with a self-curtailment commitment of 18% required to clear the third.
The incentive atlas returns 14 eligible Texas programs across the three candidate counties. Our form-mapping engine produces a ranked list: Ch. 313 replacement (TX), Trinity Metro opportunity zone, Arlington local property tax abatement, and a TWDB water infrastructure grant. Projected capture: $84M NPV.
The Site Intelligence moratorium watch flags a newly-filed Arlington city council ordinance proposing a cooling-water cap for large industrial loads. Our community engagement playbook fires: we draft a public-comment response, a meeting brief for the city council member representing the district, and talking points for the customer's public affairs lead.
Queue Intelligence generates the draft ERCOT submittal package: GIR request, GINR, load profile template, SCADA spec, single-line diagram, financial readiness attestation, self-curtailment commitment, and per-POI upgrade cost narrative. Ready for counsel review.
The customer's outside counsel — a mid-tier Texas energy firm, not an AmLaw 100 — reviews the package in 8 days. Four redlines, three of which are counsel preferences and one of which catches a potential Batch Study eligibility argument we hadn't flagged. We update the schema in production that same day.
We accompany the customer to an informal pre-filing meeting with ERCOT planning staff. The meeting brief, prepared by Cliffcenter and reviewed by counsel, walks through the upgrade cost envelope and the self-curtailment proposal. ERCOT asks three clarifying questions; answers are resolved in two days.
The ERCOT submittal package is filed electronically. Every field sources to a document in the customer's workspace. Counsel signs; the customer's project team gets a copy of the filing and a compliance calendar seeded with every downstream deadline.
ERCOT confirms the project advances into the Batch Study window. Two competitors fail the readiness gate; the customer moves up two slots in the schedule.
The Texas Ch. 313 replacement application package ships. Our form-mapping engine handled 38 of 44 fields without a human in the loop; the customer's CFO signed the attestation. Local property tax abatement package is 80% complete.
The Arlington cooling-water ordinance is amended to exempt projects that commit to a water reclamation target. Our playbook had pre-identified three ordinance precedents with similar carve-outs — the customer's public affairs lead used them in direct testimony.
Every upstream filing is active: ERCOT interconnection, Ch. 313 replacement, Arlington property tax abatement, TWDB water infrastructure, Trinity Metro opportunity zone. The BTM Workflow page shows a clean regulatory graph with 22 downstream deadlines, all green.
What it costs
Real Cliffcenter pricing versus realistic traditional-provider quotes. Every line is a workflow we ship today.
Total Cliffcenter · $166K
Total traditional · $1.03M
84% savings, 3× the speed. Every artifact is auditable. Every workflow is reusable for the customer’s next project.
“We filed a 420 megawatt project on a budget that would have bought our last law firm three weeks. And we left with every artifact we needed to repeat it.”
Why a hypothetical
Every number on this page is realistic — pulled from engagements we run today, public consultant quotes, and law firm pricing we’ve verified with counsel. But we do not invent customer quotes, and we do not publish testimonials from customers who haven’t cleared them with us.
When our first reference customer clears the case study, it will replace this page. Until then, the shape of the story is exactly how our current engagements run: fast, cheap, auditable, and entirely inside the platform.
If you want the non-hypothetical version of this memo, ask for a scoped walkthrough and we will deliver one on your own project data.
Case study
Send us a one-paragraph project brief and we will ship you a scoped memo within a week. Same structure, same numbers, your actual project.