Kudos to Texas's Utility Commission for Staying Within its Authority

The Public Utility Commission of Texas, or PUCT, denied a petition for a framework to meter and regulate data centers' internal computing loads on October 1.

Green Recursive Utility Service LLC, or GRUS, argued that the PUCT should measure the computing activity behind electricity demand inside a facility. Its original case claimed that its computing approach could reduce electricity demand. A September revision shifted the emphasis to measuring internal peaks, cooling and resource usage through standard equipment.

GRUS Argued Its Patent-Pending Technology Would Reduce Demand

GRUS's July filings described data center facilities as black boxes. The commission could see the electricity entering, the company argued, but lacked a standard unit for measuring the computational work that determined demand. GRUS presented that missing unit as a gap in large-load registration, forecasting and regulation.

The proposed remedy initially drew on two GRUS patent applications covering a data format and the computing system that used it. GRUS claimed its approach could reduce processor cycles, memory transactions and peak power while performing the same work. That was its justification for treating computational efficiency as a grid issue: reduce the work's resource cost inside the facility, and the facility would draw less electricity without being throttled or curtailed.

GRUS also argued that utilities' load-management and efficiency authority supported this approach. It proposed recovering grid-relief costs from parties creating the computational load through a metered charge, and asked that GRUS be recognized as a data-infrastructure utility prepared to supply the service.

The Revision Sought Internal Power Readings and Equipment Data

The September revision emphasized a different measurement problem. GRUS argued that blended facility averages could conceal sharp peaks from particular computing circuits. Utilities, it said, would still have to reserve generation and build transmission capacity to serve those peaks. Internal measurements would identify where that demand arose and improve the record used for planning and cost allocation.

The revised framework paired electrical submeters, which measure power supplied to computing equipment within the facility, with power and temperature data already available from servers and racks. It added workload and cooling classifications, retained measurement records, independent verification and reporting, with water measurements for evaporative cooling. The proposal went beyond electricity delivered at the service entrance to require a verified picture of internal operations.

The revision excluded source code, model weights, proprietary algorithms and private tenant data. It set no computational-efficiency target or limit. GRUS said standard equipment could supply the measurements and existing authorities would decide any consequences.

GRUS Changed the Proposal Just Before Comments Were Due

Comments were due September 11. GRUS filed a 62-page revised standard on September 10, followed by a substantially similar version on September 11 with internal drafting notes and hearing scripts removed. In its September 25 memorandum, commission staff said the new rule language was entirely different and other commenters had not had an opportunity to review it.

Staff objected that the original proposal would embed a proprietary standard in regulation and that the revision broadened into a reporting regime involving other agencies' authority.

GRUS disputed that account on September 29. It said its regulatory objective had stayed the same while implementation changed after it identified measurement capabilities already present in facilities. With those changes, the company said, no proprietary GRUS meter, exclusive vendor or replacement of the utility's billing meter was required.

The revision also corrected earlier technical claims. Its correction log changed a heat comparison for a 150-kilowatt rack from about 50 residential furnaces to about five or six, while keeping the rack's power rating at 150 kilowatts. Staff cited overstated thermal calculations among its reasons to recommend denial.

The PUCT Did Not Accept the Expansion

The commission denied the original petition, the revised petition and the other requested relief.

First, Senate Bill 6 doesn't require the requested expansion. GRUS called the proposed line separating computing equipment's electrical demand from other facility demand the transport-layer boundary. The signed order says the Senate Bill 6 requirements do not expressly or implicitly require metering and regulation of transport-layer consumption or computational efficiency.

Second, the PUCT needs to focus on implementing what the legislature did require. The order cites the commission's existing implementation roadmap and full slate of rulemaking projects. Opening the requested proceeding would, it says, “redirect staff resources away from these essential rulemaking projects”.

Those are the commission's stated reasons. Staff's broader objections to the revised framework remain staff's assessment. The decision was on the October 1 consent agenda, where items were decided together in one vote. The written order supplies the rationale; the recording contains no merits debate on the petition.

GRUS Isn't Giving Up

GRUS filed another rule-adoption request in Project 58317 on October 1, the same day the commission voted and released its order. That filing converted the September standard into proposed rule text and said no substantive position had been removed.

Operators following the existing Senate Bill 6 proceedings have another filing to examine. The measurement proposal has not disappeared.

Electricity Metering Should Stay Within Electricity Regulation

Accurate electricity-use and demand measurements give the grid a basis for serving a customer. Assessing how efficiently the customer's computers, or any other equipment, perform their work reaches into the customer's operations. A compulsory framework for measuring internal computing loads would expand the commission's role inside the business.

Data centers, like every other electricity user, should have their electricity usage metered and be charged for what they use. Their internal computational efficiency is an issue for the operator. Market forces will continue to drive efficiency, as they have in other industries for generations.

Watch the October 1 open meeting: youtube.com/watch?v=BCaJLJHEnAo.