Overview
One Grid, One Gas Basin and a Queue Five Times the Peak
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) runs the Texas Interconnection, which carries about 90 percent of state electric load and sits outside Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) jurisdiction. The Permian Basin in West Texas supplies the natural gas that fuels most ERCOT generation, the Houston Ship Channel refineries and the Gulf Coast liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals.
Comanche Peak in Somervell County and the South Texas Project in Matagorda County supply nuclear baseload. West Texas wind, Northeast Texas solar and a battery fleet of about 18.7 GW at the end of September 2026 make up most new capacity. AI data centers, Samsung Taylor, the Terafab fab in Grimes County and Tesla Giga Texas are the new loads.
| Grid operator | ERCOT, overseen by the PUCT |
|---|---|
| Share of state load | About 90 percent |
| Record peak | 91.1 GW, summer 2026 |
| Large-load requests | About 474 GW (Aug 2026) |
| Battery storage | About 18.7 GW (September 2026) |
| Nuclear plants | Comanche Peak, South Texas Project |
| Main gas source | Permian Basin |
| Large-load law | Senate Bill 6 (2025) |
Grid and policy
Texas Is Auditing Every Large Data Center Before It Connects
Senate Bill 6 (SB 6), signed June 21, 2025, set interconnection standards for loads of 75 MW or more and lets ERCOT curtail them in a grid emergency. On June 18, 2026 the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) approved Batch Zero, a single system-wide study of every qualifying large load. See ERCOT Large Load Interconnection.
Governor Greg Abbott ordered the PUCT and ERCOT on Aug 3, 2026 to audit every data center in the interconnection process before more are approved. ERCOT paused the Batch Zero study and the energization of new data center and crypto loads of 75 MW or more. Abbott added the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) to the audit on Sept 14, and on Sept 21 ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to pause all data center air and water permits, including permits for on-site power plants, until the review ends. ERCOT's report is due by Dec 10, 2026. See Texas Data Center Moratorium.
The largest campuses build their own gas plants, covered in Behind-the-Meter Power. Those plants qualify for the JETI Act school-tax limitation that data centers themselves cannot use.
Generation and fuels
Permian Gas, West Texas Wind and a Fast-Growing Battery Fleet
Permian gas runs the combined-cycle and peaking fleet and now feeds dedicated data center plants such as Chevron's Energy Forge One near Pecos. Harris County refineries and Gulf Coast LNG terminals take the rest of the gas and crude, shipped through the Port of Houston and the Port of Corpus Christi; see Gulf Coast Nexus.
The Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ) lines, completed in 2014, carry West Texas wind to the Texas Triangle metros. ERCOT added about 14.7 GW of batteries between summer 2025 and summer 2026, more than any other resource except solar. Tesla builds Megapack 3 and Megablock in Brookshire, and SpaceX is planning a gas turbine blade foundry in Bastrop.
Water is the input Texas cannot add with new plants: supply depends on rainfall, aquifers and river basins, and the Sept 14 TWDB order requires data centers to report their water use.
Pages
Texas Energy Nexus Pages
| Page | Sector | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| ERCOT Energy Sovereignty | Grid | How ERCOT runs the Texas grid outside FERC jurisdiction, its DC ties and the post-Uri reforms |
| ERCOT Large Load Interconnection | Grid | The 75 MW large-load line, SB 6, Batch Zero and the 2026 audit of data center requests |
| The JETI Act | Policy | The school-tax limitation that excludes data centers but covers the gas plants built to power them |
| Behind-the-Meter Power | Power | On-site generation consumed directly by data centers, fabs and gigafactories |
| Brownfield Inheritance | Sites | New projects reusing the water rights, grid ties and zoning of retired industrial sites |
| Southern Spirit Transmission HVDC | Grid | Pattern Energy's planned 3,000 MW HVDC line linking ERCOT to Southeastern grids |
| Texas BESS Concentration | Storage | Grid-scale battery growth across ERCOT since Winter Storm Uri, and the leading operators |
| Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant | Nuclear | Vistra's two-unit plant in Somervell County and its data center power deals |
| South Texas Nuclear Station | Nuclear | The two-unit Matagorda County plant co-owned by Constellation, CPS Energy and Austin Energy |
| Aalo Atomics | Nuclear | Austin developer of factory-built reactors for data centers, with the Aalo-X test reactor in Idaho |
| Texas Geothermal Energy | Geothermal | Houston geothermal developers, the Sage plant at Christine, and wells at the load versus grid-delivered power |
| Permian Basin Energy | Oil and gas | West Texas oil and gas, and the gas-fired power plants planned for data center campuses |
| Houston Ship Channel Petrochemical | Oil and gas | Harris County refineries and chemical plants supplying fuels, gases and solvents |
| Texas LNG Export Hub | Oil and gas | Gulf Coast liquefied natural gas terminals from Brownsville to Sabine Pass |
| Texas Green Hydrogen Hub | Hydrogen | The HyVelocity Gulf Coast hub, Infinium in Pecos and electrolyzer factories around Houston |
| Samson Solar Energy Center | Solar | Invenergy's Northeast Texas solar plant in Lamar, Red River and Franklin counties |
| Roscoe Wind Complex | Wind | RWE's four-farm West Texas wind complex in Nolan, Mitchell, Scurry and Fisher counties |
| Rodeo Ranch Energy Storage | Storage | Plus Power's standalone battery near Pecos in Reeves County |
| Tesla Megapack and Megablock at Brookshire | Storage | Tesla's Waller County factory building Megapack 3 and Megablock grid batteries |
| Bastrop Turbine Blade Foundry | Power equipment | SpaceX's planned foundry casting gas turbine blades in Bastrop County |
| Texas EV Charging for Robotaxis and Trucks | Charging | Tesla robotaxi depots in Austin, Semi Megachargers on I-10 and megawatt truck lanes on I-45 |
| Texas Water Supply and Stress | Water | Aquifers, river basins and the industrial water demand of data centers and fabs |
| Water and Cooling in Large Facilities | Water | Closed-loop and air cooling in data centers, and ultrapure water recycling in fabs |
Record
Dataset Record
- Sources
- ERCOT, Public Utility Commission of Texas, Office of the Governor, Texas Comptroller, Texas Legislature (SB 6), US Energy Information Administration, Bloomberg Government, RTO Insider, Pillsbury, Troutman Pepper Locke, Willkie Farr, Foley and Lardner, Sheppard Mullin, Energy Ogre, Grist
- Last verified
- October 2026