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Texas Governor Orders Audit of Data Center Connection Requests

Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to conduct a comprehensive verification and audit of all data centers advancing through ERCOT's interconnection process. The PUCT and ERCOT must complete this audit before any data center project moves forward. Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT will be denied connection to the Texas grid. ERCOT is currently considering approximately over 474 gigawatts of requests to connect to the Texas grid, more than five times Texas' record peak electricity demand for ERCOT. Approximately 90 percent of the new power requests are data centers. That unprecedented load growth could endanger the reliability and stability of the Texas electric grid, the Governor's office said in a statement. Building on his June 10 directive, Governor Abbott also directed the PUCT and ERCOT to obtain the following information from each data center project: Information detailing the extent to which data centers are paying their own way or depending on the state for financial assistance; the extent to which data centers are providing their own power or depending on the ERCOT grid for that power; the extent to which data centers are bringing their own water and reusing their own water as opposed to using water needed by local communities; the extent to which data centers are using measures to reduce impacts on neighboring property owners and communities, including noise mitigation, light controls, setbacks, traffic improvements, emergency response coordination, and other community protection measures, understanding that each community is unique.