Saturday, June 13, 2026

Hyperscalers Wire $200M Upfront as ERCOT's Queue Hits 438 GW

Three forces converged on Texas developers this week: ERCOT's queue swelled to 438 GW, Black Hills booked $200M+ in upfront hyperscaler cash to fund a 1.8 GW build, and Abbott signaled the residential-subsidy era is closing. Developers with anchor tenants, secured generation, and produced-water agreements already in hand will run the table while everyone else discovers what "queue discipline" actually costs.

Today's Lead

Governor Abbott just rewrote the Texas datacenter playbook. His June 10 letter orders the PUCT and ERCOT to keep datacenter transmission and interconnection costs off residential bills by July 31, with an interim memo due July 17 detailing authority gaps and needed legislation.

The directive previews a 2027 legislative agenda: repeal of sales tax exemptions, mandatory water and electricity reporting, setback and noise rules, and water-efficient technology mandates. PUCT Chairman Thomas Gleeson backed the move. The Data Center Coalition signaled it'll engage rulemaking. The window to shape these rules is open, and short.

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Politics

Cost-allocation populism goes national, and Texas isn't immune

Abbott's order lands inside a broader political shift. Latitude Media's polling shows 71% of Americans would oppose a datacenter near their home, a 49-point swing in under a year. Data Center Watch counted 75 projects worth $130 billion blocked or delayed in Q1 2026 alone, with active opposition groups doubling to 833 across 49 states. Montgomery County, Maryland just imposed a six-month permit moratorium to write rules first. Arizona locked in a three-year pause on new datacenter tax incentives.

Texas still has the fastest path to build, but Abbott's letter tells developers the old cost-shifting model is closing. Developers who've already negotiated transmission cost allocation into anchor tenant deals and locked water disclosure into their permits will navigate the July 17 memo and the 2027 session as table stakes. Those still pricing projects against residential rate-base subsidies are exposed.

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Power

The queue is full, and hyperscalers are paying to skip it

ERCOT's interconnection backlog received 519 large-load requests in the past two years versus 24 the prior year, totaling 438,595 MW of pending demand. Pablo Vegas called it "an unprecedented change in the pace of growth." Nationally, William Blair pegs the data center power deficit at 28 GW by 2030. Hyperscalers are responding by funding utility infrastructure directly: Black Hills Corp. just secured over $200 million in refundable upfront contributions from an undisclosed hyperscale customer for a 1.8 GW load with 2028 service.

Oracle's Texas footprint shows the pace. Stargate in Abilene runs at 42% of capacity with another 35% coming online within three months, targeting full power by year-end. Shackleford has 115 MW lit with customer equipment delivery in H1 2027. Vertiv's Peter Panfil notes module designs have scaled from 1.5 MW to 6 MW in a year, with 12 MW in discussion. Developers without secured generation, anchor tenants, and disciplined queue position won't survive the sequencing.

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Sources we cited

11 articles across 11 publishers · 232 reviewed today

[1]Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Abbott orders regulators to protect Texans from data center costs - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Jun 10, 2026·Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday directed state officials to shield residential electricity customers from costs related to data centers.…
[2]The Cool Down
Abbott orders Texas regulators to keep AI data center costs off residents' power bills
Jun 12, 2026·It has exposed divisions among Texas Republicans over how tightly to regulate the industry. Gov. Greg Abbott is pressing Texas energy regul…
[3]Data Center Richness
5 Notable Data Center Links, June 13 2026
Jun 13, 2026·Each week I curate 5 links from the data center sector that I find particularly interesting, with my commentary on why they merit your atten…
[4]Latitude Media
America’s electricity rage is here
Jun 12, 2026·New polling shows voters are furious about electricity prices, data centers, and utility profits. Can it become a mandate for change? The po…
[5]Ars Technica
$130 billion in data center projects blocked by protests so far this year
Jun 12, 2026·Winning fight against AI data centers gives people a “taste of political power.” It’s clear that communities now have an effective playbook…
[6]WTOP
Montgomery County rolls out six-month moratorium on data center permits
Jun 13, 2026·Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich held a Friday afternoon news conference to announce an executive order that would deny permitting fo…
[7]Arizona Capitol Times
Arizona’s data center moratorium is only the beginning
Jun 12, 2026·Rep. Junelle Cavero, Guest Commentary//June 12, 2026// Arizona’s data center moratorium is only the beginning A data center owned by Amazo…
[8]Killeen Daily Herald
Unprecedented data center boom means new challenges for Texas with construction planned throughout state
Jun 12, 2026·This is a conceptual rendering of the proposed Rowan Digital Infrastructure data center in Temple, not the actual design. AUSTIN — Late las…
[9]MarketBeat
The 127-Gigawatt Problem: Why AI Needs Its Own Power
Jun 12, 2026·The centralized electrical grid is struggling to keep pace with the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. As hyperscalers race to deploy…
[10]Next Platform
While Oracle Will Rake In Big Bucks On AI, Profits Are Hard To Predict
Jun 12, 2026·The transition from perpetual licenses to subscription-based pricing was a difficult transition for all makers of system and application sof…
[11]Data Center Frontier
From Components to AI Factories: Peter Panfil Says the Future of Data Centers Is All About Integration at Scale
Jun 12, 2026·ORLANDO, Fla. — For years, the data center industry optimized individual systems: power distribution, cooling, racks, UPS equipment, and mec…

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