250 Projects Face Months of Checks Before April's Batch Zero

Governor Greg Abbott’s Aug. 3 order has moved verification ahead of technical studies for 250 to 300 projects, mostly data centers, representing roughly 200 GW of future demand before ERCOT will study them for grid connection. ERCOT told the Public Utility Commission of Texas the audit will take “several months” and begins after Aug. 20; Batch Zero completion is still aimed at April, with first-batch inclusion notices held while spot checks run first.

The queue behind that gate is 474 GW of proposed large load, about five times ERCOT’s ~85 GW installed base, and ERCOT has not issued a grid demand forecast in months because so much of the backlog lacks financing or signed tenants. Public Citizen’s Texas director Adrian Shelley called the letter-based pause a “faux pause” with no statute and no filed enforcement language; 43 companies, including Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services, have publicly endorsed the audit, so voluntary alignment is the current operating mode until PUCT and ERCOT dockets define rejection metrics.

Bottom line: treat April’s Batch Zero gate and the post-Aug. 20 verification window as schedule items on the balance sheet, not press-cycle noise.

New York’s legislature passed the Responsible Data Center Act (S.10642/A.11560) on June 4, 2026, imposing a one-year freeze on new Department of Environmental Conservation permits for data centers above 20 MW. Nearly 12 GW of data center load sits in New York’s interconnection queue; the bill also orders an 18-month statewide environmental impact report, NYSERDA efficiency standards within a year (existing sites get two years), mandatory developer-funded public hearings, and a utility rate class that assigns full operational and commodity costs to large load.

Separately, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is pressing an 18-month construction pause across Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida so commissions can write transparency, cost-recovery, and reporting rules before concrete is poured. The Southeast holds about 48% of planned U.S. data centers, with Metro Atlanta carrying the largest construction pipeline; Duke Energy has been cited as proposing nine to ten gigawatts of new gas in the Carolinas alone under that demand pressure.

Descriptively, these are out-of-state freeze and study regimes Texas developers should price when comparing site-selection speed and interconnection certainty. Capital still concentrates where queue mechanics and private generation paths stay open; operators who wait for another state’s efficiency or wastewater disclosure bar to migrate will carry retrofit and carrying-cost risk on campuses already designed to Texas specs.

Abbott’s directive pauses new data center *grid connections*, not construction, and Meguire Whitney’s Elizabeth K. Whitney flags the planning risk: campuses will accelerate self-supplied gas turbines to protect energization dates, then seek grid access later from a built position. SB6 curtailment rules and PUCT approval before existing generators leave the market to serve large load only work if load queues in advance; unmapped behind-the-meter campuses reverse that order and complicate cost-causation and overbuild math.

Live Texas capacity signals keep moving inside that frame: - CyrusOne’s SAT14A west of San Antonio: $500 million, 460,000 sq ft on U.S. 90 in Medina County, completion targeted June 2027, near a 265-acre Medina Technology Park advertising 500 MW potential on Medina Electric Cooperative. - ENGIE’s 48 MWac retail-wrapped PPA for QTS Irving, fed by ABEI Energy’s 61 MWac Lubio solar in Kaufman County (~150 GWh/yr), a three-party structure that locks renewable supply without QTS owning the asset or running a separate ERCOT gen interconnection. - Amazon’s $10 billion Project Eagle near Boling in Wharton County (prior coverage): site prep continues toward a 2027 first building, but ERCOT audit delay and undefined state scrutiny now sit on the energization path; peak draw cited near 75 MW for early scope while total campus power remains unset.

Of the 474 GW ERCOT was tracking, about 205 GW initially qualified for Batch Zero before tighter documentation thresholds. Bottom line: secure generation and audit-ready site control before you need the study result, or budget quarters of carrying cost between private capacity and any later grid tie.

Nevada’s Southern Nevada Water Authority ban on evaporative cooling in new Las Vegas and Henderson commercial construction is the clearest accounting warning for Texas offset design. Twenty-three Southern Nevada data centers used 716 million gallons in 2024; Google’s Henderson campus alone drew 352 million. Air-cooled designs post WUE of zero on paper while drawing two to three times the electricity of evaporative plants, shifting condenser water burn to gas combined-cycle units outside the data center’s permit boundary. Three ASHRAE Winter Conference presenters in Las Vegas (Feb. 2026) reached the same conclusion: generation water has to sit inside any honest metric.

Vantage’s $3 billion, 224 MW Storey County campus and nearly 6 GW of northern Nevada requests show how fast that blind spot scales. S&P Global finds 43% of global data centers already in high water stress. Abbott’s June standards and the ERCOT/PUCT audit already put water impacts on the Texas review list; developers who sell air cooling as “zero water” without bundled generation or long-term power contracts are shifting aquifer and cooling-tower burden onto the grid baseline regulators will eventually price.

Separately, Imperial in Pecos County still can’t use tap water. Pecos County Fresh Water, serving about 800 residents, violates EPA combined radium and gross alpha limits; residents haul jugs 30 miles to Fort Stockton at $1.75 per five gallons. Statewide, 29 public systems serving more than 22,000 Texans violated radionuclide limits in 2025. Pecos County Commissioner Nathan Reeves says some funding is in hand to evaluate blending or a new well, with no public timeline. Bottom line: model power-plant water and local utility headroom in site selection now, or face offset and community fights after capital is posted.

Firm public commits to Abbott’s large-load standards now include a deep bench beyond any single governor multi-announce: QTS Data Centers, Digital Realty, EdgeConneX, Galaxy Digital, MARA, Montera Infrastructure, OpenAI, Skybox Datacenters, Stream Data Centers, Cipher Digital, Hut 8, Lancium, Meta, Oracle, Equinix, New Era Energy & Digital, and Riot Platforms. Amazon remains gov-attributed (soft); Google is spokesperson-level only. Diode remains the clear exit after withdrawing Henderson County rather than meet the disclosure bar.

ERCOT general counsel Chad Seely told the PUCT the governor’s letter moves verification “to the front of the line before we begin the interconnection study process.” PUCT Chairman Thomas Gleeson framed the goal as certainty in Batch Zero. Local opposition is not abstract: organized campaigns have already blocked or delayed $64 billion in projects (May 2024–March 2025), Gallup reads 71% opposed to nearby data centers, and more than 230 organizations have demanded a national moratorium. House Energy and Commerce has opened an inquiry into foreign funding of anti-data-center campaigns.

Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana are still permitting at speed ($55 billion proposed or underway in Ohio alone; a SoftBank-linked Pike County campus in prior coverage) while researchers admit health-effect evidence next to hyperscale sites is thin. Bottom line: file for the audit with financing, tenants, and water offsets documented, and engage counties before opposition sets the hearing record you will inherit.