Form W Part A closed July 10 as scheduled, and the numbers came back science-fictional: 326 study-eligible projects totaling ~205 GW entered Batch Zero — roughly double the ~100 GW ERCOT had projected. On July 29, CEO Pablo Vegas told the Texas Senate Business & Commerce interim hearing that the total large-load interconnection queue stands at 474 GW, roughly 90% of it data centers. For scale: ERCOT's all-time system peak, set July 21 during this window, is ~87,533 MW. The queue is 5.4x the highest demand the grid has ever served. (Verification note: ERCOT's Senate deck cites a 91,089 MW figure; independent checks put the confirmed all-time peak at 87,533 MW set Jul 21 — we use the verified number.) Five days after the Senate hearing, Governor Abbott pulled the brake. His August 3 directive orders PUCT and ERCOT to run a 'comprehensive verification and audit of all data centers advancing through ERCOT's interconnection process' — which functions as a de facto freeze on new approvals while it runs. ERCOT's Market Notice M-A080326-01 (same day) suspended the August 7 Batch Zero classification notices; a good-cause exception goes to the August 20 PUCT open meeting. At the August 14 PUCT special open meeting in Austin, officials scoped the audit at 250–300 projects / ~200 GW and said verification takes 'several months' but under nine. The demand-forecast establishment noticed: EIA cut its Texas 2027 demand-growth forecast from 14% to 6% in the same window. The state that built the fastest interconnection process in the country — the whole point of SB 6 and Batch Zero was speed with skin-in-the-game — concluded that before it studies 205 GW of load, it needs to know how much of it is real.
Why it matters
The audit is the ERCOT load-realization thesis executed at governor scale. §25.370 already wrote 'actual historical realization rates' into rule (49.8% for data centers); Batch Zero already forced skin-in-the-game elections; now the state is manually marking 205 GW to market before studying any of it. Three reads. (1) For developers with real load, the audit is a gift: surviving it is the credential that separates you from 60%+ of the queue, and everything that proves load reality (contracted offtake, equipment orders, PCLR elections, financial security posted) is now underwriting collateral. (2) For the market, the published audit result — whatever fraction of 474 GW survives — becomes the single most important denominator in US power planning; every national forecast (BNEF's included) is currently built on unaudited queues. (3) The five-week arc from 'fastest process in the country' to 'stop everything and verify' is the same arc PJM ran in the same month, arrived at independently. Queue verification is now the national posture.
Related filings
Exelon cuts high-probability DC load 18→11 GW -40% / pipeline 43→25 GW / ComEd cancels PowerHouse Hillwood 1.8 GW $20B TSA / EXC -3.1% / EIA TX 2027 14%→6% / outlier: FirstEnergy +50% AEP 63→69 GW Dominion 53.8 GW Southern 17 GW Camellia 3.2 GW with 1 GW flexible DR / BofA 230+ GW needed vs 93 GW planned / JLL 25 GW H1 absorption 1% vacancy 66 GW UC 95% pre-let / BNEF +52% 2030 118 GW +83% 2035 194 GW / $11.3M per MW +6% / 499k worker shortfall
On July 30 Exelon became the first major utility to mark its data center pipeline to market: 'high probability' load cut from 18 GW to 11 GW (-40%), total future pipeline from 43 GW to 25 GW, disclosed in the Q2 8-K alongside the state-policy squeeze (NJ...
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