Tuesday, July 7, 2026

The Permian Gets Texas's First 765 kV Backbone, and CREZ Wrote the Playbook

ERCOT is spending $14 billion on 765 kV transmission into the Permian before the load arrives, running the same build-ahead playbook that CREZ proved a decade ago. With Q1 2026 connection requests hitting 438 GW, more than five times Texas's peak demand, the developers who read this signal early lock capacity while everyone else studies the queue.

Today's Lead

Texas isn't waiting for hyperscale demand to prove itself before building the wires. In April 2025, the Public Utility Commission of Texas approved a $13.8 billion, 765-kilovolt transmission strategy for the Permian Basin, ERCOT's first extra-high-voltage backbone, betting deliberately that transmission corridors drive site selection the way CREZ accidentally did for wind and later data centers.

The math backs the wager: transmission providers forecast 11.6 GW of non-oil-and-gas demand by 2030, with combined Permian demand reaching 23 GW by 2030 and 26.4 GW by 2038. ERCOT staff picked 765 kV over comparable 345 kV ($12.95B) and 500 kV ($15.32B) plans, concluding extra-high-voltage best balances forecast uncertainty against the speed and scale of incoming load. Build it first, and they follow. If demand clusters elsewhere or slows, the corridor sits underutilized, but developers who watched CREZ know which way that bet usually breaks.

[1]

Power

Power-first sequencing separates who gets built from who waits in queue

The binding constraint isn't demand, it's sequencing. In Q1 2026 alone, nearly 200 proposed data centers and large users requested 438 GW of ERCOT connections, more than five times Texas's August 2023 record demand. So the biggest players stopped fighting the three-year queue. NRG closed a $12 billion LS Power acquisition (roughly 13 GW of gas) and reserved 5.4 GW of GE Vernova turbines through 2032. Vistra locked 20-year nuclear PPAs with Meta (2,600 MW) and a separate 1,200 MW deal at Comanche Peak. Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Diamondback are building dedicated gas plants outright. Anthropic's $19B, 401 MW TeraWulf lease landed on a converted Kentucky aluminum smelter with 480 MW already grid-connected. Galaxy delivered 133 MW of Helios Phase I on schedule under CoreWeave's 526 MW, 15-year commitment.

The pattern holds across every winner: secure generation or pre-powered industrial sites before finalizing interconnection. Developers who reserve generation before locking interconnection points risk stranded assets; those who chase tenants before power face delays. The margin goes to whoever controls the electrons first.

[2]·[3]·[4]·[5]

Water

Texas can't plan a fifty-year water crisis it refuses to measure

Only 17% of Texas's 341 data centers answered the Texas Water Development Board's water-usage survey. The PUC got 28 responses from 92 facilities surveyed. Meanwhile the UT study projects data centers could hit 9% of Texas water consumption by 2040, with current statewide demand near 25 billion gallons a year and the potential to top 175 billion within five years. Rep. Cody Harris (R-Palestine) noted the attorney general's office could compel responses; enforcement hasn't materialized. Nationally the gap runs deeper: Lawrence Berkeley found U.S. data centers use 12 times more water indirectly through power generation than on-site, and about two-thirds of new builds sit in water-stressed regions.

Voluntary transparency flips a liability into an edge. Developers who answer surveys, publish audits, and commit to closed-loop cooling and secured alternative sourcing clear permits faster than competitors still in the crosshairs. The ones treating disclosure as optional will face mandatory reporting backed by enforcement, at higher cost and with less control over the narrative.

[6]·[7]

Sources we cited

7 articles across 7 publishers · 305 reviewed today

[1]Datacenter Knowledge
Texas’ 765 kV Decision: Build the Wires, the AI Will Follow
Jul 6, 2026·The state’s first extra-high-voltage network marks a fundamental shift in grid planning – building massive capacity for data centers and oth…
[2]Yahoo Finance
Five Energy Stocks Riding Texas's Data Center Power Boom
Jul 5, 2026·Fly into Abilene, Amarillo or Midland this year and you'll see the buildout before you land: cranes over half-finished turbine halls, miles …
[3]MarketWise
NRG Energy: The Overlooked Power Stock Behind Texas's AI Boom
Jul 6, 2026·Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). When it comes to data center and AI infrastructure growth, everything is big…
[4]Tech Times
Anthropic Signs $19B Data Center Lease: WULF Surges as AI Power Crunch Deepens
Jul 6, 2026·Anthropic signed a 20-year lease on Monday for a purpose-built AI infrastructure campus in Hawesville, Kentucky, owned by TeraWulf Inc. (Nas…
[5]PR Newswire
Galaxy Completes Phase I of Its Helios Data Center Campus, Delivering 133 Megawatts of Critical IT Load to CoreWeave
Jul 6, 2026·Milestone marks the on-schedule delivery of Phase I and Helios's transition to revenue generating operations, with Phase II development cont…
[6]Houston Chronicle
Texas’ water crisis is real. Data-center secrecy could make it worse | Editorial
Jul 6, 2026·Corpus Christi is in danger of running out of water. Groundwater across the state is dwindling. Experts say Texas needs tens of billions of …
[7]finance.biggo.com
Big Tech's AI Data Centers Expand Their Appetite from 'Power Hogs' to 'Water Hogs'
Jul 5, 2026·Artificial intelligence (AI) data centers have moved beyond the stigma of being "power hogs" and are now at the center of environmental cont…

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