Texas will not approve new data center connections to the state grid until regulators finish auditing them, and the audit reaches past electricity into tax incentives and who owns the projects.
Gov. Greg Abbott issued the order Monday, Aug. 3, in a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
What operators must now disclose
The list regulators were told to collect is broader than a grid study. It covers on-site and off-site electricity demand, water use, on-site generation plans, noise mitigation, light controls, tax incentives claimed and ownership structure, plus potential impacts on nearby communities.
Tax incentives and ownership are the notable additions. Data centers frequently qualify for state and local abatements, and the structures behind them often involve holding companies, which can make it hard for a city to know who it is actually dealing with.
Abbott's office asked for some of this voluntarily first. Most operators did not reply.
The scale being audited
ERCOT reports more than 1,800 projects in its interconnection queue, over 474 gigawatts combined, more than five times the grid's record peak demand. Abbott puts data centers at about 90 percent of new requests. The queue was 233 gigawatts in January.
