Everything is bigger in Texas — and that includes the data center demand straining its power grid.
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Texas data center development has become so rampant that the state is on track to become the world’s data center capital by 2030, surpassing Virginia.
Just last week, Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the Lone Star State’s grid operator, told state regulators that power demand is on track to quadruple by 2032, driven by an unprecedented surge in large data center projects seeking to connect to the grid.
ERCOT isn’t the only grid operator facing outsize power demand amid the data center construction boom.
The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, which operates the grid for 15 states across the Midwest, South, and Mountain West, expects demand to increase by 35% by 2035 — again, largely driven by data centers.
MISO said demand growth was concentrated in its central region, which includes Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.
All three states are home to massive data center projects from the likes of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and Oracle.
The 35% jump represents a historic increase for regional grid operators, though it is far less extreme than the surge Texas faces.
Texas data centers may have to wait for power
ERCOT’s existing power plants and transmission lines don’t have the capacity to serve the record growth, and as a result, data centers in Texas face up to several years of wait time to power up.
Some data center developers in Texas have given up on the grid altogether and are building their own on-site, “behind-the-meter” power plants. Most of those projects, like Oracle and OpenAI’s Stargate data centers in Abilene and Shackelford County, use natural gas.
It’s possible that not all of the data centers that requested grid connections in Texas will ultimately be built, and Texas’s quadrupled demand forecast may not materialize.
ERCOT “has concerns” with the accuracy of the forecast and seeks to consult with regulators” to evaluate whether it is appropriate to seek an adjustment,” the grid operator said last week in a filing with the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
In addition to power, some data centers have also struggled to find funding for construction.
