ERCOT Energy Sovereignty

Overview

ERCOT Runs a Separate Grid for About 90 Percent of Texas Load

ERCOT schedules power for more than 27 million customers over more than 55,000 miles of transmission lines and more than 1,460 generating units. It owns no plants or wires; it runs the real-time and day-ahead markets, plans transmission and handles generation and large-load interconnection. The Texas Panhandle, El Paso and parts of East Texas sit on the Eastern or Western Interconnection instead; see Texas Panhandle Nexus and Texas Trans-Pecos Nexus.

ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Texas Legislature. It lists its headquarters in Austin and runs a control center in Taylor in Williamson County.

Federal reach

Staying Unsynchronized Keeps ERCOT Outside FERC Rate Regulation

The Federal Power Act of 1935 gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authority over interstate wholesale power sales and transmission. Because the Texas Interconnection does not run synchronously with neighboring grids, sales inside it count as intrastate and fall to the PUCT. In 1976 Central and South West briefly sent power into Oklahoma to force federal jurisdiction; the legal fight ended in a compromise that allowed limited asynchronous ties.

FERC still reaches ERCOT through reliability. North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) standards apply in Texas and are enforced by the Texas Reliability Entity. Southern Spirit Transmission, Pattern Energy's planned 3,000 MW high-voltage direct current (HVDC) line to Mississippi, is built as an asynchronous tie so that it adds import capacity without changing ERCOT's jurisdiction.

DC ties

Five Small Ties Connect ERCOT to Oklahoma and Mexico

ERCOT puts total import capability at about 1,220 MW: 820 MW from the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) and roughly 400 MW from Mexico's grid, run by CENACE and the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE). During Winter Storm Uri, Mexico cut exports to Texas after Texas restricted gas exports to Mexico.

After Uri

Winter Storm Uri Drove Weatherization Rules and the Battery Buildout

Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 froze gas wellheads, pipelines and plant equipment while demand hit winter records. ERCOT ordered rolling outages for days, and the Texas Department of State Health Services counted 246 deaths. Senate Bill 3 (2021) required weatherization of power plants and gas facilities.

ERCOT expanded its ancillary services, adding the ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service for fast-responding resources, and batteries grew to compete in them: about 14.7 GW were added between summer 2025 and summer 2026, bringing the fleet to about 18.9 GW. See Texas BESS Concentration.

AI load

Data Centers Make Up About 90 Percent of New Large-Load Requests

Large-load requests reached about 474 GW by August 2026, about 90 percent of them data centers. ERCOT's preliminary April 2026 forecast put 2032 demand near 368 GW, a figure ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said is higher than the load growth ERCOT expects. Senate Bill 6 (SB 6), signed June 21, 2025, set the rules for loads of 75 MW or more, including curtailment in emergencies and disclosure of on-site backup generation.

Jeff Billo, ERCOT's Vice President of Interconnection and Grid Analysis, leads the Batch Zero study. Governor Greg Abbott's Aug 3, 2026 audit order paused that study; ERCOT's verification report is due by Dec 10, 2026. Details are in ERCOT Large Load Interconnection and Texas Data Center Moratorium.

Related coverage

Related Coverage

• ERCOT Large Load Interconnection
• Southern Spirit Transmission HVDC
• Texas BESS Concentration
• Behind-the-Meter Power
• The JETI Act
• Texas Energy Nexus