Texas Has 474 Gigawatts of Data Center Connection Requests. The Governor Just Hit Pause.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered a temporary halt on new data center grid connections on August 3, 2026, directing the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to conduct a "comprehensive verification and audit" of all data center projects currently working through the interconnection process.
The scale of the problem the order is responding to: ERCOT is tracking more than 474 gigawatts of interconnection requests — more than five times Texas's all-time record peak electricity demand. Approximately 90% of those new requests come from data centers, the majority of which are being built to support AI compute workloads. ERCOT has postponed its "Batch Zero" transmission planning studies while it implements the directive.
Under the audit process, developers must submit detailed filings covering projected annual and peak electricity consumption, plans for on-site versus grid power, state and local tax incentives received, impacts on local water resources, and full ownership structure of the proposed facility. Projects that fail to comply or fail the audit face denial of grid connection — a requirement with real teeth given that a Texas grid connection is effectively a prerequisite for operating a utility-scale data center in the state.
Texas has spent years marketing itself to the data center industry as a friendly jurisdiction: loose regulations, abundant land, historically cheap power, and generous tax incentive programs. That pitch has worked. The volume of pending interconnection requests suggests the state has attracted more compute investment than its grid infrastructure can absorb in its current form.
The order follows months of pressure from residents and local officials in communities adjacent to proposed data center campuses, citing noise, water use, and the risk of grid instability. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller characterized the move as political, questioning whether the audit process would actually slow approvals. The governor's office did not provide a timeline for how long reviews would take.
