The Texas Energy and Power Newsletter

Where ERCOT predicts large load interconnection and transmission are headed.

Data centers, electricity prices, and who should pay; 24/7 renewables closer than you think; data centers' water footprint in Texas; Fervo Energy goes public; and the history of the American grid.

Texas Grid Emerges as the Defining Growth Market for America's Power Companies

Will the shift in AI to decentralization eliminate the need for hyperscale data centers?

Tiffany Wu on how ERCOT's batch zero process will decide which large loads get studied first, which transmission gets built, and who pays for it.

Eric Goff, founder of Goff Policy on batch zero, transmission planning, and how Texas can serve new load without shifting costs onto existing customers.

ERCOT's reliability standard process, the Texas Backup Power Package rule, and transmission cost allocation debates.

Why the antifragile grid starts here.

Stuart Reilly and Lisa Martin of Austin Energy on what it takes to hit 100 percent carbon-free generation by 2035, and the resource decisions the utility is making now to get there.

Maura Yates, CEO of Mothership Energy, explains why the binding constraint is contract complexity, not technology.

FROM CERAWEEK 2026: NRG is collapsing power plant timelines from 20 years to 18 months, as Texas races to keep up with skyrocketing load.

How much load is coming, and what should ERCOT do about it?

Transmission has long lead times, and demand growth is not waiting. Raina Hornaday walks through what that means for how the Texas grid actually gets built.

The race to manage AI-driven load growth; rural landowners cash in on renewables; looming threats to solar power; climate risks fuel insurance cost increases; and more.

The Sweetwater attorney who helped write the legal framework for Texas’s wind power renaissance walks through 25 years of energy development — and what they’ve meant for the future.

ERCOT added more than 60 gigawatts of new electricity supply in the past five years — yet the load interconnection queue now exceeds 400 gigawatts

Recent reports and rulemakings from ERCOT and PUCT point to three major trends shaping the Texas grid: rapid growth, rising transmission investment, and large load management.

After years of slow growth, utilities and power generators are now planning for massive demand increases.

As large new customers line up in ERCOT, Texas’s grid operator must decide how to plan transmission, serve load, and price risk without shifting burdens onto current ratepayers.

Yale Climate Connections on the two states rapid growth; AI surge and data center pushback; challenges to the Permian Basin Reliability Plan; and how Texans may feel the Iran war.