Tuesday, September 8, 2026

49.8 GW Waits on ERCOT's Dec. 10 Audit of 300 Centers

ERCOT's Dec. 10 audit of 300 centers holds 49.8 GW as phantom filings can't clear the collateral screens already cutting multi-state pipelines. Developers who've locked water offsets, local consent, and private generation before the November RFI keep $8B carrying cost off the books.

Today's Lead

ERCOT will finish auditing roughly 300 data centers seeking grid connection by December 10, 2026, the gate that restarts Batch Zero studies stalled under Governor Greg Abbott's directive. About 49.8 GW of data center load sits suspended inside a 474 GW queue (roughly five times Texas peak demand), and industry models put carrying costs near $8B by Q1 2027 if that date slips.

RFIs start late August and roll through November; the final report lands at the Public Utility Commission of Texas one week before its December open meeting. Chad Seely, ERCOT senior vice president of regulatory policy, general counsel, and chief compliance officer, has framed the work as verifying self-funded build, self-supplied power or grid draw, water sourcing, community mitigation, and ownership control before interconnections restart.

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NATIONAL CONTEXT

Out-of-state policy is adding permanent cost and local-consent gates. Virginia kept its equipment sales-and-use exemption through 2035 but imposed a new $0.011/kWh electricity consumption tax on data centers effective July 1. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's one-year moratorium covers facilities at 50 MW or more and requires self-supply or a grid premium. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro removed data centers from fast-track permitting and required local approval before state permits issue; Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs pressed lawmakers to kill a $38M incentive.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes called for a statewide moratorium on August 31, and a Noble Predictive Insights poll found 57% of registered Arizona voters oppose new large-scale projects. In Piedmont, Oklahoma, the planning commission recommended rejecting Cloverleaf Infrastructure's rezoning for a campus that could draw up to 1.5 GW, while Beltline Energy's nearby request sits on hold. Argentina's Patagonia corridor is courting the same capital with Vaca Muerta gas and RIGI tax terms: Pampa Energía is marketing up to 500 MW beside Loma de la Lata (~$900M in power infrastructure), OpenAI has flagged up to $25B with Sur Energy still in Neuquén site selection, and Flexdomes is pitching a first phase near 120 MW.

[3]·[4]·[5]·[6]·[7]·[8]

Power

NEW: Collateral and Self-Supply Separate Real Load from Phantom Filings

AEP has collected nearly $2B in cash or collateral against 45 GW of Batch Zero load in Texas. Exelon cut its data-center pipeline from 43 GW to 36 GW this quarter, with only 11 GW high-probability and 4 GW backed by signed transmission security agreements plus $1B collateral; multi-state duplicate filings shrink when someone asks for a check.

A MarketScale piece flags Vantage Data Centers' 1.4 GW Frontier campus in Shackelford County (first delivery targeted H2 2026, investment above $25B, liquid cooling on 250 kW-plus racks) as the scale where the grid contract writes the IT schedule. Early South Korean media cited a 6.3 GW Encinal gas plant near $22B under the bilateral trade framework; Seoul's trade ministry immediately said the figure isn't confirmed and no final decision exists. Show-notes-level reporting also puts Anthropic at $517B in compute agreements over 11 months (~14.8 GW), including a 191 MW lease with Riot Platforms in Texas.

Bottom line: post collateral, lock private generation, and answer November RFIs with signed offtake before December 10, or carrying cost compounds while Batch Zero stays dark.

[2]·[9]·[10]·[11]·[1]

Water

NEW: Opaque Gallons Are a County and Audit Liability

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory put direct U.S. data-center cooling at 17 billion gallons in 2023, with paths that double or quadruple by 2028; add power-sector water and the same lab stack reaches 211 billion gallons a year. Ceres claims centers in seven states including Texas withdraw 3.4 trillion gallons a year for electricity; Arizona State work using 2024 LBNL inputs puts nationwide indirect consumption nearer 650,000 acre-feet, so the accounting still fights while local opposition doesn't wait.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found corporate reports remain the only detailed source, and many operators publish nothing; communities near Lockhart are already organizing against five planned centers partly on that opacity. Abbott's audit explicitly asks whether each project secures its own water or leans on local supply, making undocumented draw a PUCT flag.

Bottom line: put consumption estimates, cooling design, and contracted offsets in the file before the RFI and the county hearing, or both clocks slip together.

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Politics

NEW: Local Consent Is Now on the Critical Path with Power

Governor Greg Abbott has said the industry "dug its own grave" by failing to win public support, and the same pressure is visible from Austin protesters seeking moratoriums to governors who once recruited hyperscale load. A Benzinga/CNBC cut from Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives puts a base case that 10% to 15% of the U.S. pipeline (1,000 to 1,500 projects in motion) gets canceled on political resistance inside a six-to-nine-month window.

Firm public commits to Abbott's standards on the curated roster now include 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 remains spokesperson soft. Abilene's Stargate experience (noise, tree loss, water spikes without early framing) is the factory that slows the next county vote; Cloverleaf's Piedmont tape that grid strength outranks resident opposition is the posture that loses rezoning recommendations.

Bottom line: signed community benefit, noise mitigation, and water-offset packages belong in the same binder as generation contracts before the next commission hearing, or the December audit clears a project that the county still blocks.

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Sources we cited

15 articles across 13 publishers · 322 reviewed today

[1]Data Center Dynamics
ERCOT to complete Texas data center audit by December
Sep 7, 2026·Audit ordered by governor last month The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has said it intends to complete Governor Greg Abbott…
[2]24/7 Wall St.
XLU’s AI Power Story Crumbles as Texas Freezes Data-Center Demand
Sep 7, 2026·Texas regulators just froze data-center hookups, and one application fee cut AEP Ohio's pipeline by more than half overnight. Whether that u…
[3]Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Lawyers%2C+lawmakers+predict+more+data+center+regulations+ahead
Sep 7, 2026·Lawyers, lawmakers predict more data center regulations ahead A car drives past a building of the Digital Realty Data Center in Ashburn, Vi…
[4]businessinsider.com
Data centers were once a political prize. Here are 11 politicians rethinking the boom.
Sep 8, 2026·America's elected officials have a different tune when it comes to data centers. Amid intense public pushback, elected officials and those …
[5]Arizona Capitol Times
To build or not to build? Data center debate hits the campaign trail
Sep 7, 2026·Women Achievers of Arizona 2026 Reagan Priest, Arizona Capitol Times//September 7, 2026// To build or not to build? Data center debate hit…
[6]Yahoo
Hidden camera catches data center developer saying resident opposition doesn't really matter to plans
Sep 5, 2026·A dispute unfolding in Piedmont, Oklahoma, and captured on hidden camera, highlights a broader question surfacing around the country: If a s…
[7]finance.biggo.com
Patagonia Draws Data Center Investment Frenzy as Power and Tax Incentives Attract Investors
Sep 8, 2026·Argentina's Patagonia region, at the southern tip of South America, is drawing intense interest from investors scouting locations for large-…
[8]TechRepublic
Tech Firms Plan Billion-Dollar AI Data Centers in Patagonia
Sep 7, 2026·Patagonia’s vast energy resources are drawing interest from tech firms planning billion-dollar AI data center projects in the region. Image …
[9]MarketScale
Vantage’s 1.4GW Texas campus makes grid contracts the real data center schedule
Sep 7, 2026·Vantage Data Centers is targeting a 1.4GW “Frontier” campus in Texas, with first delivery slated for H2 2026. Power procurement and cooling …
[10]Tekedia
South Korea, U.S. Discuss $22.3 Billion Texas Gas Project to Power AI Data Centers
Sep 7, 2026·South Korea and the United States are discussing a potential investment of about $22.3 billion in a Texas gas-fired power project designed t…
[11]Data Center Dynamics
Anthropic signed $517bn in compute agreements in past 11 months
Sep 7, 2026·Represents 14.8GW of compute capacity AI lab Anthropic has signed some $517 billion in compute capacity leases in the past 11 months. As r…
[12]New Haven Register
Data centers consume massive amounts of water – companies rarely tell the public exactly how much
Sep 7, 2026·An anti-data-center sign is posted at the farm of Derek Emadi near Lockhart on Thursday, June 4, 2026. Five data centers are planned nearby.…
[13]Yahoo
American data centers in just seven states are reportedly using more water than all the cities in California
Sep 8, 2026·When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Think tank Ceres found power generat…
[14]The Fulcrum
Is AI Worth the Cost to Communities?
Sep 7, 2026·In an aerial view, the Stargate Oracle AI data center campus is seen on August 26, 2026 in Abilene, Texas Picture a family living on a quie…
[15]Benzinga
Dan Ives Warns 10%-15% of US Data Center Projects Could Be Cut as AI Boom Faces Political Backlash, Calls
Sep 7, 2026·While Wall Street focuses on capital expenditure, Yorkville Ives partner Dan Ives argues that growing political backlash against data center…

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