The Texas Energy and Power Newsletter

Building trust comes before building data centers

As large new loads line up in ERCOT, Texas must decide how to plan transmission and price grid access without shifting the cost onto residential customers, and Texas Energy Buyers Alliance has a plan.

How and why attitudes towards data centers are changing; What they show about US industrial strength; Latitude Media's podcast on their path forward; and a new study on how ERCOT can meet demand.

How the geopolitics of electrification are creating a new role for Texas in American energy security.

As Texas prepares to build a $40 billion-plus high-voltage transmission backbone, Barry Smitherman argues the PUC can open those contracts to competitive bidding if a 2019 law is repealed.

How Texas can continue to lead the nation; SCOTUS ruling; Congress moves to help ratepayers?; New research from Columbia's Center on Global Energy Policy; and LNG market trends.

Good policy design and implementation can hold data centers accountable for their bills, saving residents.

Caitlin Smith and Jason Ryan on what ERCOT’s batch zero large-load queue process fixes, and the threshold and timing questions that determine which projects make it onto the grid.

What the new directive from the Governor means.

The 765-kV story continues to unfold; new FERC directive; NRG opens Houston power plant; Base Power expands to PJM; and plenty of other acronyms.

Grid regulators are so focused on cleaning up fake demand they are ignoring real demand.

Josephus Allmond, Virginia's chief energy officer, on what PJM could borrow from ERCOT's market design, and why one Virginia cost rule blocks the fixes the region is considering.

Recent report cards for ERCOT and what they mean for the future of the grid.

Little change to energy prices; communities and carbon accounting vs. data centers; Trump's coal investment in Texas; and a busy week at the PUC.

The Texas Tribune maps data center buildout; Google's bet on the grid; Details on the Governor's letter to PUC and ERCOT; Record demand predictions; and why this oil shock is different from the rest.

By denying data centers, communities miss an opportunity to shore up water systems

PUC Chairman Thomas Gleeson on screening speculative load from real projects, assigning the cost of growth to the customers who cause it, and why the demand side matters as much as new generation.

Data centers and grid access; Texas battery storage leads the nation; the Texas Energy Fund's first projects; home efficiency rebates lose electrification; and regaining data centers' social license.

Travis Kavulla on why the utility model of building ahead of demand falls apart under data center growth, and what it would take to make new load pay its own way onto the grid.

Where ERCOT predicts large load interconnection and transmission are headed.